


Collection of Short Works

by ialpiriel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 60
Words: 42,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bits and bobs I've written and posted on tumblr. A lot of them aren't accurate to the game because they're from months ago before we knew what was going on.<br/>Relevant shipping chapters:<br/>Adaar/Blackwall: 18, 28, 31, 33, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 57<br/>M!Adaar/Cass: 20, 21, 25, 26, 29, 37<br/>M!Adaar/F!Adaar (theyre not related): 18, 28, 32, 35, 40, 41, 50, 51, 54, 56, 58<br/>M!Adaar/Iron Bull: 22<br/>Vague, implied F!Adaar/Cass: 60</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just Ataash Adaar And Her Younger Brother And Some People Who Never Show Up Again

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first things I wrote, in July. Features a friend's inquistor as well as mine.

“ _Imekari Adaar_ ,” the man rasped. “Has your father sent for more potions?”

“No, _arissqun_.” Ataash shuffled her feet and looked down at the ground.

“ _Shanedan, imekari_.” The man leaned against the doorframe and smiled. He had, after a considerable amount of practice, managed a smile that was not terrifying on his scarred lips and cheeks.

“ _Issqun esaam ash_.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“ _Ash?_ ” he asked.

“ _Ash saar_ ,” Ataash replied, holding up one chubby-fingered hand. Blue sparks danced from finger to finger.

“Ah, _saarebas_. You need a tamassran, not the remnants of a saarebas.” Ataash’s face fell at his comment. “I will speak to one I know. You are in no danger. You will learn as you ought to.”

Ataash beamed up at him.

“You are certain your father doesn’t need potions?” he asked again.

“Yes, _arissqun_. He wants you to teach me and Bin-Ysrit.”

“Your brother too?” The man hmphed and smiled a little wider. “And neither your father nor mother?”

“No, _arissqun_. They don’t know why.”

“The first saarebas of the family are the strongest, _imekari_. You will be a powerful woman when you are grown.” The man seemed to remember something, and straightened up. “Wait here for a moment. I have a gift for you and your brother.” The man disappeared back into his shack – it was one of the oldest still-standing buildings in the village, and it looked the part – and when he returned, he was carrying two long sticks, carved into intricate designs on one end and with blades set in and sealed to the other end. “These are staves. The other mages use them. _Saarebas_ are never taught to use them, but perhaps my friend will teach you how.” He held them down to Ataash, who held one tightly in each hand, eyes wide and shining.

“Thank you, _arissqun_. This is a very good gift.”

“I hope it will be useful to you. I will come visit you when my friend has come to us, alright? I must speak with your mother and father.

“Yes, _arissqun_. I hope she comes soon.”

“I am sure she will.” The man smiled. “You do not need to call me _arissqun, imekari_. You may call me Asala.”

“Yes, _arissqun_ Asala.”

Asala laughed.

“Close enough. Go home and speak with your mother.”

Ataash scampered back down the path, toward her family’s shack at the other end of the village. Asala watched her go.

+++

Four days later, Asala stood at the door to the Adaar home. It was one of the newer buildings in the village – the rotating cast of dangers in the area (disease; old magic; human, elven, and other vashoth bandits) kept the number of new buildings needed down. The door still hung straight, which was a miracle of construction that almost no one else had managed yet. Asala knocked.

It was Meraad Adaar who opened the door. He was shorter than Asala – shorter than most of the other men in the village – but nastier looking, an impressive feat compared to an ex-saarebas.

“Ataash said you would visit when her teacher arrived. I take it she has?”

“She has. Kaaris said she would not enter your home unless invited. She understands the vashoth distrust of a tamassran.”

“She will teach both of them?” Meraad asked, glancing back into the room where his two children sat on the floor, squabbling about Ataash’s latest offense against Bin-Ysrit.

“She said she will teach them as long as they will learn. These are not the qunari. We have a choice to be who we want.”

Meraad nodded. “Ataash, Bin-Ysrit,” he called back to the two children, who immediately straightened up and looked at him with innocent eyes. “Your teacher is in the village. Would you like to meet her?”

“Yes!” Ataash was on her feet in a moment, Bin-Ysrit close behind her, clinging to the back of her shirt. “We practiced with the staffs you gave us, but they're really hard to use.”

“Kaaris will teach you how to use them.” Asala smiled down at them. “Come on. Meraad, you are welcome to come, as is Asaara.”

“Would you like us to come?” Meraad asked the two children. Ataash shook her head.

“We're big kids now. We can go places on our own.”

“I expect you back by dinner. You hear me? Ataash?”

“Yes, Dad.” Ataash all but rolled her eyes while Bin-Ysrit nodded. “We’ll do magic for you when we get back!” The two followed Asala back toward the other end of the village, Ataash nearly dragging Bin-Ysrit.


	2. This One Has The Iron Bull In It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ataash asks the Iron Bull to embarrass her brother

"Bull, can I speak with you?" Ataash brushed past him. He turned his head to follow her.

"Of course, Inquisitor."

"Follow me. I’d rather have no chance of my brother overhearing us."

"My dear Inquisitor, what could you possibly have planned?” A shit-eating grin spread across Bull’s face. Ataash glanced back at him and narrowed her eyes.

"Just for the record," she said, voice dripping with distaste, "I still think you’re part of a reactionary cult I want nothing to do with. I need your help with something to do with my brother, and as the man he’s been making eyes at, you’re exactly the person I need."

"I see." Bull chuckled as Ataash waved him into her quarters. She glanced up and down the hall before stepping inside herself, and locking the door.

"He’s smitten with you, you have to have noticed by now." Ataash leaned back against the door, dropping her chin just enough to avoid digging her horns into the soft wood. "Being the piece of shit older sister I am, I need your help to embarrass him in front of everyone. Just a little bit." She held up her fingers, just barely apart, and squinted for dramatic effect. "Not a lot. Not enough he’ll kill either of us. Just maybe ask him out on a date in front of everyone else. Maybe make out with him a little."

Bull laughed.

"For as much as you profess to hate ‘what I stand for’ you are awfully willing to trust me with your brother."

"Oh, I don’t trust you. That’s the other thing." Ataash pushed herself off the door and stepped up into Bull’s face. "I’m a mage. Saarebas if you feel like being dramatic. You know that. You also know I’m fond of electrocuting people and that I’m very good at it. You fuck him over, I fuck you over. We clear?”

"Crystal, Inquisitor."

"Good. You got any good ideas on how to get him?"

"Give me a couple days and I’ll get back to you. I haven’t been watching him close enough."

"Alright. Two days, I’ll meet you back here?"

"It’s a date." Bull wagged his eyebrows. Ataash scowled at him, and he was careful not to let his smile drop as she let him out of her room.


	3. Cassandra Shows Up Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass and Ataash discuss the fact Ataash has nowhere to go back to.

“You have no place to go back to, Lady Adaar. You saw your village in ruins. This place is as good as any other for you now. Better, perhaps.” Cassandra looked back toward Ataash, who followed ten steps behind. “There are reports of a _beresaad_ in the area where your village used to be.”

Ataash grunted. “Figures. We were reaching too far.”

“Do the _qunari_ go after _vashoth_?”

“Only the _tal-vashoth_. We had maybe four in our village but one was a _saarebas_ and one was a _tamassran_. The sort of people you don’t want leaving the _qun_. Another foot soldier? No big deal. A couple mages? Much bigger deal. If you can bring in two dozen _vashoth_ though – better for you. Not for us, probably, I end up dead no matter where I go at this point, between the chantry and its war and the _qun_ and its hatred of mages.”

“Had the war reached your village?”

Ataash threw her head back and laughed. “We had three templars come through once to try to scare us into converting. There were fifteen of us who came out to greet them, including four mages. We hung their bodies up as a warning. Magic is a tool, not something necessarily evil.” Ataash shrugged once when Cassandra looked back at her. “If you want to know who I’d side with, I’m for the mages. My teachers left the qun because they were things there, not people, and I’d rather not be a glorified eating, shitting, breathing, tinderbox like I’ve heard a lot of circle mages are. Sounds like a shitty way to live.” Ataash grimaced.


	4. Ataash Gets Pissed And She and Bull Hit Each Other With Big Sticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written before I knew about the "qunari training exercise." Also before I realized Ataash would like Bull a lot once she got past the qunari thing.

_We may be cheap, but we ain’t free_   
_And we’re just fighting for the right to know_   
_To know some kind of kindness_

"You and me." Bull leaned in the doorframe, and Ataash narrowed her eyes at him.

"Why?" she asked. "You know I don’t like you."

"That’s exactly why." Bull grinned. "We get this,” he waved a hand at the space between them, “worked out, everyone is happier.”

"Everyone except me, who wakes up with a dozen new bruises tomorrow. How suicidal do you think I am? You’re a goddamn _ben-hassrath_ , you’ve had fucking military training, I’m a hedge mage who fights mostly by hitting things with a big stick if they get too close.”

"Then we use big sticks." Bull nodded toward the stack of blank staves leaning in the corner of the room. Ataash turned and scowled at them. "I’m flexible."

"They’re not useful yet. I need someone to do enchantments for me." Ataash turned her attention back down to the staff in her hand, which she was sanding down with an overused piece of glasspaper.

"You surely know how to hit things with a stick without the use of magic." Bull chuckled. Ataash turned her scowl on him.

"I also know how to light things on fire without the use of a big stick," she replied. 

"Fifteen minutes, _Ariash_. You’re wound too tight and you’re clearly not going to take anyone up on their offers of sex, throw a few fireballs at me to make yourself feel better.”

Ataash looked at Bull and sighed.

"Fifteen minutes," she finally agreed. "Go pick a staff. I’m bringing my combat staff though. I’m not going anywhere without the chance to light things on fire more efficiently.”

~*~*~

The sky was almost dark, but the moon was bright and the torches around the walls of the yard barely flickered, casting a light all around. When the two qunari had come out the back door, staves in hands, Ataash scowling her near-signature scowl, Bull smiling at the back of her head, fantastically entertained by her bad mood, the yard had cleared immediately. A dozen people - mostly the serving staff - stayed clustered around the edges of the yard, watching with wide eyes as Ataash and Bull squared off in the sand.

Bull held his staff like a greatsword - two handed, in front, most of the weight to the forward end. Ataash held hers the way she always did - mostly balanced, but with her hand just a little closer to the unweighted end to add a little more oomph when she had to hit someone.

Bull charged, and Ataash neatly sidestepped it and slammed her staff across his stomach. He stumbled back, laughing, not even winded.

"Good hit. We’ll make a warrior out of you yet," he told her as she swung her staff up again and he parried with a heavy blow downwards. They both took a step back from the force of the staves colliding. Ataash spun her staff to get the pointy end in front, and went after Bull with long, fluid stabbing motions. Her brow was furrowed and her teeth bared, and she made no sound besides and occasional grunt at the force of blows.

"I’m not qunari, not the way you think," Bull told her, unprompted, after she landed a heavy blow against one of his horns, causing both of them to cringe back and the crack of oak against horn. “Not really.”

"But you’re not vashoth, and you’re definitely not tal-vashoth, not if you’re feeding them information,” Ataash replied, dancing back to avoid Bull’s swing. “Far as I can tell, you only other option is ‘ _qunari_ ,’ _Beres-taar_.”

"There are other options."

"I don’t believe you." Ataash’s staff ignited, and Bull flailed back out of its way. "You don’t leave the qun. You die or you get _qamek_ 'ed. You don't walk away.”

"Do you think the qunari aren’t people? Did your teachers tell you stories about the people who helped others escape, or were the qunari just boogeymen to keep children from straying?"

"Does the small minority of real people in the qun matter, compared to the thousands of abuses by the rest of them?" Ataash snarled, pressing her advantage. Her hands flared - one with red-orange fire the other with Fade-tear-green light. Bull parried her strikes, but didn’t make any of his own, even as he was walked back toward the wall. "Does one good deed make up for a dozen bad?"

"You make a good point, but-" Bull swung his staff, hard, into Ataash’s knees, sending her to the ground with a yelp. The crowd gathered around flinched as she moaned on the ground. "-what have you done to help the vashoth?” _"I’ve done a lot, _basra_ ,” Ataash snarled. “I would die to get my family and my people back. I protected us from any threat that came for us. I would’ve stormed Par Vollen and Seheron both to save them.”_

"So that’s what you would _do_ , but what have you _done_?”

Bull held one hand down to Ataash, who stared up at him with narrowed eyes.

"It’s been fifteen minutes," she finally said, as the flames on her hand and staff died down, leaving an ashy patch on the sand. The green light from her other hand didn’t die, and she wiped her palm on her thigh to no effect. "It’s been fifteen minutes, and I’m done with this." Ataash rolled onto her knees and stood up. She dusted off her pants and snatched up her staff, which she stuffed into the back of her belt. She didn’t look at Bull, not even as she stepped around him and headed back inside, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, chin tucked to her chest.


	5. Solas Shows Up And There is A Discussion About Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Written with the dual ideas of “Qunari don’t dream like everyone else” and “The Qunari call the Fade 'The Land of the Dead'" kept in mind)

This part of the Fade is ruled by a spirit of understanding, Solas can feel it. That was one of the first things he learned – how to tell spirits from demons, and how to know when they know you’re present. This one knows the two of them are there, but it doesn’t particularly care. It understands dreams.

Ataash is standing in the middle of an open field, arms crossed across her chest, but shoulders relaxed and head up. She’s watching something thirty feet in front of her, faint smile on her lips. Solas can’t see anything there. Maybe the air shimmers sometimes, but other than that – and that’s a common enough effect in the Fade – there’s nothing.

She glances over when he comes to stand beside her.

“Hello,” she murmurs. She’s quieter in the Fade than outside. She looks tired.

“Hello,” Solas replies, straightening up a little. There’s no real point – she’s almost a foot taller than him no matter what – but it makes him feel a little better.

“There are a lot of people here tonight.” She unfolds her arms, brushes them down the front of her shirt, and refolds them. She shifts from foot to foot.

“Who?” Solas asks, confused. There’s no one here, not for an awfully long ways.

“You can’t see them?” Ataash asks, confused in turn. She looks down to study Solas’s face. “They’re right over there. And there. There’s a lot of people back the way you came.” She points in different directions, starting with the space in front of her where she was looking before.

“No, I can’t see them. What are they? Who are they?” He squints. He knows it won’t help, but at least he’s trying, right?

Ataash blanches.

“You – you really can’t see them? It’s not a joke? You’re not playing some sort of game?”

“No, I really can’t see them. Who are they?”

“They’re –” Ataash breathes once and stares at one moving point. “ _Asala kata_?” Her brow furrows and she looks down at Solas, who was still trying to parse what she had said. She shrugged. “ _Ashkost tal-kata _.” They let the silence sit between them for a long minute, while Solas tried to remember the limited Qunlat he had picked up from Ataash and Iron Bull’s shouting matches.__

“How do you know what they’re seeking?” he asked.

“I asked one once. They didn’t used to notice me, but now they do.” She hold up her left hand and wiggles her fingers, refusing to look at Solas. “And sometimes I can hear them when we’re near the tears. They want me to show them the way. I don’t know the way, _ashkaari_. I barely know what this place is, let alone how to navigate it.” Ataash sighs. “I didn’t want this responsibility. I didn’t want any of this. I had a life and I had people I loved and a future not tainted with this.” Ataash throws her arms out to indicate the entirety of the Fade, and sighs once more.

“It’s not tainted,” Solas says quietly. “It’s not what you would have wanted, but it’s in your blood.”

“Don’t go into ‘fate’ with me. I don’t like it.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Solas smiles up at her. Her eyes soften a little. “But I think you’re discounting a lot of opportunities.”

Ataash chuckled.

“Glad you could make it, kadan. Maybe you’ll make an optimist of me yet. If anyone could do it, it would be you.”


	6. Solas and Ataash As The Reincarnated Shartan and Andraste, Because This Was Months Ago And Something Had To Be Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> solassians and i were discussing last night - what if the inquisitor is andraste reincarnated? or something like justice an anders? and what if solas is actually shartan?  
> so i took it and ran with it

"Shartan!" Ataash bellowed across the battle field. Her eyes were lit up like the fade tear and like the gash on her palm, some sick persistent green. Solas whipped around, his hand coming up just in time to catch the staff Ataash had hurled in his general direction. He used it to club the demon in front of him across the face, sending it reeling back as much as a demon could. Ataash blasted it with a lightning bolt a half second later, before spinning to fireball the wall of rage demons trying to overwhelm her. They swarmed, and dragged her to the ground while she shouted expletives at them and fired blasts of ice. She tried to twist away from their hands, but couldn’t quite make it.

It was Solas who vaulted over the log in the middle of the battlefield, eyes and staff blazing, yelling something in elvish that Ataash didn’t quite recognize.

“Andraste din’shiral ‘nehn!” he bellowed, voice belying his size. The demons turned to look at him, giving Ataash the perfect opportunity to blast a huge spiral of cold out from herself, sending them scattering and fading and vaporizing.

"Thank you," she gasped, and he helped her to her feet. Blackwall and Cole, at the other end of the field, dispatched the last of the demons that had come after them. "It’s no trouble, _lethallan_.”

"All the same, thank you, _kadan_." Ataash dusted herself off.

'What was it you called me? Earlier. It wasn't my name, I'm fairly certain.”

"No, I called you Solas. Didn’t I?" Ataash looked at him, brows furrowed and frowning slightly. "I definitely called you Solas."

"No, no, I’m pretty sure you called me something else."

"Now that you say that, I don’t think you called me Ataash or one of your usual nicknames."

"I know I called you by your name,” Solas replied, scowling.

Cole and Blackwall approached from the other end of the field, weapons sheathed even as Ataash and Solas used their staves to gesture.

"I’m pretty sure you didn’t. I think I heard you call me Andraste."

With the name, the green around Ataash’s hand flared. She stared down at it, eyes wide and face otherwise blank.

"Andraste," Solas said after a moment of stunned silence. Her hand flared again, and she looked up at him. He stared back. "Shartan. You called me Shartan."

"Who the hell is Shartan?" Ataash asked.

"He was an elven slave. A friend of Andraste’s. Some say her lover." Blackwall interjected. "It’s one of the founding stories of Andrastianism. You heard the people call you the Herald of Andraste?"

"Yeah, but as far as I could tell it was human bullshit." Ataash scowled at her hand, lifting it to eye level and turning it a little to get a better view of the whole image of the fade tear burned there. "You aren’t telling me that it’s actually true? I don’t even know who Shartan is."

"Then why would you have called him that?" Blackwall asked.

"I don’t know,” Ataash nearly whined. Cole blinked and cleared his throat. Ataash turned to look at him.

"A spirit could have possessed you," he said, very quietly. Ataash stared at him. "Without you knowing," he added, little louder. Not much louder, really, just enough to make himself easier to hear.

"Without me knowing?" Ataash repeated.

"Yes." Cole folded his hands behind his back and inclined his chin a little. "If you and - and the spirit were similar enough you could have just. Could have just become one person, one soul, and not even thought about it. Not been separate anymore."

"That - that could have happened?" Ataash stared at her hand in growing horror. "I might not be - me?"

"You’re you!" Cole reassured her, eyes going wide. "But perhaps there’s a part of you that - wasn’t always you. It doesn’t mean you’re any different than you were, just that -" Cole paused and made a pained face.

"Then what about him? Why would he call me - Andraste? Why would I call him Shartan?"

"If he has the same soul as Shartan did, perhaps the spirit recognized that."

"Too much of a coincidence." Blackwall shook his head. "Probably heard the name somewhere and accidentally used it."

"I don’t know who Shartan is. Why would I call Solas by a name I didn’t know?" Ataash looked between her three companions. Solas was staring up at her, Cole looked a little confused and a little interested, and Blackwall just looked concerned for everyone involved. "I don’t like this," Ataash said, shaking her hand once, then straightening and slinging her staff back into her belt. She stuffed her hand down into her pocket and raised her chin. "We need to keep going. We can talk about this back at the Hold."

"Of course, Inquisitor," Solas agreed. Blackwall and Cole nodded and grimaced both. Ataash turned and led the way down the path toward the ruin of an estate.


	7. The Iron Bull and Ataash Discuss Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a riff off that last piece about dreams. There was a picture to go with it

"I have the nightmares too." He settles down on the balcony next to Ataash, who shifts over a few inches even though there is ample room for both of them, and he sat a good two feet away at any rate. He doesn’t move closer, not like he usually does with a smirk and a wink.

"Hm. Never met anyone else who did. I asked the other mercs, none of them knew what I was talking about. Even the _saarebas_ I met didn’t know what they were.”

"They don’t teach the _saarebas_ , or maybe you hadn’t heard.”

"That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t think about it." Ataash shook her head. "I don’t believe you’d have the same ones. Not the ones about the dark rooms and the sewn lips and the bound wrists and the control rods and everyone you ever loved locking you in a room to be possessed by a demon and prove their worst suspicions true."

"No, but I hear the dead and I see them wandering. That’s why you became a necromancer, yeah? To stop the nightmares of the dead?"

"Yes, it is. But you can’t know what it’s like. It never stops. You have to sleep easy some nights but - but I’ve never. Not since I first touched the fade. it won’t leave me alone. I wake up and I can still hear them. That’s why I hate all of this." Ataash nodded toward the huge green rip in the sky, casting its light across the valley below."I can hear them even when I wake up, if I get too close to a tear."

"The dreams are getting worse the longer it’s open." Bull nodded. "All the more incentive to close it."

"You say that like I know how," Ataash snapped. "Do you think I wouldn’t? This is the strongest magic I’ve ever had but I’d give it up in a moment if I could sleep through the night." "Would you?" Bull asked, smiling a little and turning to look at Ataash. She nodded and squinted out at the breach.

"I would," she said. "I try not to lie about things like this. There’s too much at stake."


	8. Featuring A Friend's F!Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> unprompted, featuring solassians's moran lavellan

"What are your marks?" Ataash asks. She taps her forehead.

“ _Vallaslin_ ," Moran replies. Ataash narrows her eyes and turns her head to look at Moran from the corners of her eyes. " ‘Blood writing.’ When we are adults, we get tattoos of who we are," Moran explains.

"Ah!" Ataash’s face lights up, after a few moments thinking through Moran’s words. She shrugs her shirt off her left shoulder to reveal an ugly branding scar just below her left collarbone, close to her shoulder. "I am _valo-kasaad_. We have marks. We are give them when we kill.” Ataash raises her chin, beaming proudly. Even through her thick accent and halting sentences, her intent is clear.

"Did it hurt?" Moran asked.

"Yes. Did yours hurt?" Ataash asks in return.

"Of course," Moran replied. "That we can take the pain proves we’re adults."

"Pain is something you have to live." Ataash nodded. "There are words for things being. ‘ _Asit tal-eb_.' Qunari idea. Doesn't fight. Says pain is important because pain exists. _Valo-kastaam_ says pain is important because pain will happen. Important things. _Valo-kastaam_ is not Qunari. Qunari is not _Valo-kastaam_. Marks important difference. Qunari change marks. _Valo-kastaam_ keeps marks.”

"Dalish keep marks too," Moran agrees.

"Tattoos." Ataash says, carefully, trying to fit her mouth around the word. Moran nods. Ataash’s pronunciation is a little off, but she’s trying damn hard. "Tattoos." She taps her shoulder. Moran shakes her head.

"Tattoos," she says, tapping her _vallaslin_. “Scar,” she says, reaching fingers toward Ataash’s shoulder but not quite touching. “Brand.”

"Brand or scar?" Ataash asks, brow furrowing.

"Scar from branding," Moran replies.

"Scar and brand are different?" Ataash asked.

"Yes," Moran replied. "A brand is a burn. A scar is what’s left behind."

"Oh." Ataash shrugged her shirt back on and picked up her stick to poke at the fire. "Do Dalish brand?"

"No," Moran replied. "Others brand elves, but elves do not give brands. Brands are - brands are for slaves."

"Oh." Ataash looks down at where her scar is, face twisting into a sour grimace. "I am not a slave. I am _valo-kasaad_.”

"People may think you are a slave if you show your brand."

"Let them think," Ataash snaps. "I am free. "

"I know," Moran chuckled. "The ones who think you aren’t won’t think so for long."

"They will not,” Ataash agrees.


	9. Cole And Blackwall And Solas Go With Ataash To The Village WHere She Grew Up

The village has obviously been abandoned for years - the doors on the homes are swinging loose on rotting leather hinges, and anything left inside them is broken or too big to haul away: tables, bedframes, rotten chests of drawers.

Ataash leads her companions - Solas, Cole, and Blackwall - through the ruin of the village to the outskirts near the river.

There’s a hut that sits apart from the rest. It’s been boarded up long ago - the best-kept building here. Ataash heads straight toward it, and shucks her staff and her coat as she gets close, leaving them in a pile on the ground.

When she stands in front of the hut, she’s almost taller than its roof.

"This is it," she says, voice empty of all emotion. Her face is the sort of blank she reserves for strong emotions - she’s not hard to read, not really.

"Do you want us to open it?" Blackwall asks. It was he who suggested they come find the village again. Ataash had laughed at the possibility of meeting her village again after 18 years.

"I can do it," Ataash replies, and wiggles her fingers in behind the first board. She hauls back with all her weight, and the board splinters. She staggers but manages to keep her feet. She drops the half board on the ground and grabs at another one, grunting.

She pulls all the boards over the door off alone. When Blackwall makes a move to help her, she bares her teeth at him. Her pupils are shrunk, even in the failing evening light. It’s the only real indication of how she feels - she doesn’t speak once.

When the door is clear, she kicks it open with one booted foot and steps inside. She has to duck, and when she looks down her horns scrape on the ceiling.

"This is where I spent my nights, ages eight to seventeen," Ataash kicks at the moldered remains of straw and animal shit on the floor. "This is home sweet home."

Cole stands far away from the hut, as if he can feel the hate radiating off Ataash and, in consequence the building. Blackwall steps inside and rests one hand on her shoulder. She leans into the touch, jaw set and arms coming up to fold across her chest.

Solas takes half a step into the building and doubles over coughing.

"You okay?" Ataash asks him as he takes a few steps back.

"That’s almost the raw fade," he gasps. "It wouldn’t take much to tear the veil here."

"Ha!" Ataash’s laugh is more a bark of knowing than any expression of humor. "That’s nine years of undiluted nightmares. Just me and the fade alone together all night for years." "We shouldn’t sleep close to here tonight. Your dreams already stretch the fade further than it should."

"I’m going to burn it to the ground. If you guys want to set up camp, I’ll be here for another hour or two. Most of those houses should still have fairly good roofs if you want to try to find one."

"We’ll do that, Inquisitor." Blackwall squeezes Ataash’s shoulder and lets his hand drop. Solas and Cole both follow him back to the rest of the village, leaving Ataash standing hunched, alone, in the middle of her childhood prison.

When she is sure they were far enough away, she raises her leg and drives her foot into the rotting wood of the wall. it vaporizes, and she snarls, sending her foot through the wall next to it, again. Then she turns and slams the other foot into the opposite wall, nearly two decades of fury and self control and fear exploding all at once, not a flicker of magic to be seen.

When she’s kicked holes in most of the walls around the hut - mice and rats fled as she assaulted the building - she steps outside and lets her hands flare. She feels the first tug toward the spirits she would summon in battle to possess the corpses of the dead, but she ignores them in favor of the raw power of fire.

What’s left of the hut disintegrates in a controlled fireball.

She stands and watched it burn, hands in her pockets and shoulders hunched. When all that’s left is ashes and cinders, she gathers her coat and staff off the ground. Both are coated in ash, and she coughs once to try to clear her lungs of the same. She heads toward the campsite, where Solas and Blackwall have lit a fire and have some sort of stew bubbling.

"Was it worth coming?" Blackwall asks her as she sits down and takes a plate.

"It was," Ataash replies. She settles next to Cole tonight, their knees almost but not quite touching. They ignore each other, the way both of them do when there are words to be said that they’ve experienced firsthand and that no one else knows the same way they do.

When they’ve put out the fire and three of them have bedded down for the night - Ataash offers to stay up for first watch, she’s already seated herself a dozen feet away and has taken out her knife and the chunk of wood she picked up along the trail that day - the world goes quiet. There are crickets and cicadas in the trees nearby, and an owl occasionally hoots far off, and the squeak of bats can be heard from over the river, but nothing loud, or obnoxious, or that they haven’t been living with for the last week anyway.

Solas and Blackwall fall asleep fast enough, but Cole lays wrapped in his blanket and thinking. When both other men start to snore, he gets up and joins Ataash at her post. She passes him a knife and a chunk of wood without a word. Carving is not a hobby he’s picked up, but he takes the wood and knife anyway, and tries to watch her hands for cues on what to do.

"Did you want to speak with me?" she asks, voice deep and quiet. The slower she peaks, the less her accent appears. It makes her easy to understand, and he knows from watching her with other qunari that this is not the way she does naturally.

"Yes," he says.

"Hm." she replies, turning her carving in her hands. It’s starting to take shape as a bear standing on its hind legs.

"The - hut. Did it really make you feel better to burn it down?"

"Yes," she replies, without an ounce of hesitation. "It was an unwilling prison for nine years of my life. I lived half my life up until I ran away in that hut. I still have every board memorized. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. It felt good to burn it down, make one less place like that exist in the world."

"There was a tower," Cole said, when Ataash has finished. She hadn’t looked at him, just paused in her carving and stared angrily at some weed ten feet in front of her like it had personally offended her.

"There was a tower, and you were locked in. Or who you used to be was locked in. I know roughly what you are, Katasala. I don’t particularly care either. You’re a good person. What do you need me to burn down?”

"I killed people," he says. "I killed people there who didn’t deserve to die, but I thought I was helping them."

"I’ve killed too." Ataash shrugs. "At least you did it because you thought it was the right thing to do, and not because someone payed you to. What do you need me to burn down?" she asks again, patient as always.

"It might already have burned," he admits.

"Then we burn the ashes." Ataash laughs, deep and gentle, as close to mothering as she ever gets. "It’s good to make your past burn sometimes."

"I - I can lead you there. Soon. I think we will be passing by it soon."

"Good." Ataash nods once, decisively. "I’m glad I can help."

The two sit side by side and silent for a long while, until Ataash yawns a few times.

"Do you want to take the second watch?" she asks. "I’ll be awake again for last watch anyway."

"I will," Cole agrees.

"Thank you," Ataash tells him, and tucks away her carving and knife. She retreats back to her bedroll by the fire, and swaddles herself in her one thick blanket. She’s snoring soon, quietly and deeply and sounding like she’s sleeping the best she has in years.


	10. Cassandra, Dorian, and Ataash Discuss Necromancy

"The Nevarran _mortalitasi_ have pledged their support." Cassandra tapped Nevarra on the map.

"What does that word mean?" Ataash asked.

" _Mortalitasi_?" Cassandra asked. "They’re the ones who prepare the bodies of the dead."

"They’re rumored to be necromancers," Dorian added.

"And whats that?" Ataash asked.

"Mages who deal in the dead. They can talk to them, resurrect corpses, there are stories that they can see the future by speaking to the spirits too." Dorian shrugged.

"They can speak to the dead?" Ataash’s eyebrows were drawn down, but her eyes were wide and she looked between Dorian and Cassandra with wonder in her eyes. "They can choose to speak to the dead? They can control them?”

"Thats the rumor. The Andrastians frown on the practice. They say that the dead should stay that way." Cassandra narrowed her eyes at Ataash.

"They’ve never stayed dead," Ataash snorted. "I’ve been dreaming in the Land of the Dead since I was eight years old and realized I could light a candle by sheer willpower. Controlling that would be-" She lifted her left hand, palm up, and grimaced down at it. "Maybe I could sleep easy for the first time in almost twenty years."

"I’m sure we can find someone who could - who could teach you." Dorian and Cassandra looked at each other. Ataash saw them, and ignored their response. "I’m sure there are some _mortalitasi_ who have dabbled at the very least.”

"Good. Thank you." Ataash nodded once, decisively. "Is there any other news I should know about?"

Cassandra leaned over the map again.

"There are troop commitments from…"


	11. Ataash Deals With Cramps And Makes Friends With The Serving Staff

"Lady Inquisitor, do you need any assistance?" The elvhen serving girl’s eyes were wide and fearful, and she carried herself deferentially. It made Ataash painfully aware that she was more than just an unknown here - she was a danger.

"No, no." Ataash waved her hand and gave the girl a tight smile. "The cramps when I bleed make it hard to sleep is all. I’ll walk them off. I’ll ask if I need anything. Thank you, though. _Ma serannas_.” Ataash smiled again and shifted from foot to foot, her hands folded behind her back.

"Of course, Lady Inquisitor." The girl bowed and, after a moment, mouth unaccustomed to the words, said, " _Ma serannas_.” Ataash grinned at her. The girl smiled back shyly and then scurried away.

***

The packet of herbs at the head of Ataash’s bed had confused her for a long few minutes. There were words written on it in good charcoal, in the alphabet of the common tongue (which was hard enough to read), but the words didn’t look anything like what Ataash was pretty sure they were supposed to. She read them to herself, pacing around the room, until she got the sound of them, at which point she realized they were phonetically approximately qunlat. “Eat for hurt. Eat with food and water.”

She smiled and sniffed them.

They were a good sort of familiar, even if she couldn’t place them exactly. She pulled one pressed square out of the packet and hunted up her stashed half-loaf of bread - old habits died hard in new places - and waterskin. She washed the herbs - bitter on her tongue, to her dismay - and the bread down with a single gulp of water. She left her door unlocked as she undressed and crawled under her wool blanket, hoping the pain wouldn’t come back.

***

Before Ataash headed out for the day’s work - more ass-kissing with Josephine, more planning with the blond _arvaraad_ , another round of swordplay with Cassandra in the yard - she made up an envelope with two 25-silver coins and the only charm she still remembered how to carve: an old elvhen one, to so some god she couldn’t remember the name of but was pretty sure she could recognize, that promised health to its wearer. She had made it before dawn, after the ache in her gut had woken her. She had taken the herbs - and they had helped remarkably, much to her relief - and had thought a charm for health a fitting payment. Not enough of one, not even with fifty silvers, but a fitting one.

She saw the girl again, just after noon, scrubbing the floor in the hall just outside the war room. Ataash squatted next to her.

"Excuse me," she said. The girl bolted upright scrambling to gather her things.

"Yes, Lady Inquisitor?” she asked, carefully eyeing the envelope in Ataash's hand.

"I’d like to say thank you for the herbs last night. They’ve helped a lot. Please, give this to the one responsible." Ataash pressed the envelope into the girl’s hand. "Tell her I’m in her debt, and may whatever gods she prays to watch over her in these dangerous times. The charm is for good health. For you," Ataash dropped two more 25-silver pieces into the girl’s other hand. "Thank you."

“‘Course, ma’am. We’ve all seen how you are with the little ones, and how you ain’t used magic to hurt anyone in the hold or put them down, and-” the girl paused. “And how you treat elves like people. It’s good to see the shems taken down a little,” the girl continued, bolder. “It’s good to have someone stronger on our side.”

Ataash chuckled a little.

"Anything to make the humans eat their own shit once in a while." 

***

The old woman who came to stoke the fires and empty the chamberpots caught Ataash’s attention. Her hair was braided halfway down her back, and her ears twitched when she spoke. She hummed to herself as she worked.

She wore a charm for good health on a cord around her neck. Ataash didn’t say anything, but she made sure to leave a few more silvers with a note next time the woman came.


	12. Shapeshifter Ataash Because We Didn't Know Mage Specializations For A Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ereborne asked: Or you could write about Ataash turning into a bear! The first time she does it, or the first time her party sees her do it, or some time when she does it for fun, or if you want to be sad about it then you could talk about her having nowhere else to go and turning into a bear to crawl into a shallow cave or under a tree or something to take shelter in a storm.

There’s time.

That’s the first thing she realizes, as a mage among mercenaries.

Nominally, she has an arvaraad - not by name, but there’s thirteen mages here, and it’s a nonmage who’s in charge of them, who keeps his eye on them and makes sure they don’t resort to blood magic or demon deals or whatever it is mages supposedly get up to.

Mostly they just tell each other dirty jokes and trade ridiculous made-up stories.

But after the arvaraad has gone to sleep - and he goes to sleep early, much to the delight of most of the mages - there are a few of them that creep out of the barracks, and out to the woods a mile away behind the slaughterhouse at the edge of town. The youngest is thirteen years old, she says, and that she is a woman, not a man, not a thing. She told this to Ataash, who shrugged and didn’t have the heart to tell her that it doesn’t matter what you think you are, you’re outnumbered here and no one cares. The oldest is probably close to forty, grizzled and already graying at his temples, the picture of a stereotypical tal-vashoth through and through. Mostly they sit around and pass around a bottle of booze and talk about where they came from and to show each other tricks with magic.

One night when they go - the youngest has just had her fourteenth birthday, and she’s growing like a weed, already at shoulder height - there is a woman sitting in the clearing in the woods. All of them scatter into the woods; if being hunted by everyone has taught them anything, it’s how to camouflage themselves in among the trees.

"I’m not here to hunt you," the woman says. Her hair is done up in some ridiculous style that reminds Ataash of horns. She’s never heard of anyone wanting to be qunari, but she’s seen enough elves wish to be human and enough humans fetishizing elves that she’s not really surprised either. "I have a proposition."

Not a single one of them makes a sound. Ataash narrows her eyes at the woman, who is smiling dangerously, her eyes crinkling.

"What do you want?" the newly-fourteen-year-old demands from her place near Ataash. Ataash tries not to hiss. This is why you don’t trust people who are still essentially children with the responsibilities of adults. She reaches back for her staff, careful to time her movements with the breeze to keep herself hidden as possible.

"You’re mages - apostates, according to the Andrastians."

An almost-imperceptible rumble rises from the mages gathered in the woods. None of them looks at the others.

"You’re on the run, even here. I can give you power that could protect you even when your magic fails you."

"They already teach us to fight with blades," the oldest of the mages says, stepping out of his place in the trees. "We don’t need your help."

The others follow him out of the trees. Ataash grabs the fourteen year old by the arm and keeps her close. At least this way, if she does something incredibly stupid, Ataash can deal with it right away.

"Blades are well and fine, but have you ever fought a bear? A spider? A dragon? One of the old sylvans? A simple sword will not do you when you have a dragon coming after you." "Then what would you propose?" the tal-vashoth demanded.

"Learn to change your shape," the woman’s eyes slid over the assembled party. "A dragon is not so hard to fight when you yourself are one." Her eyes stopped on Ataash and the fourteen year old, whose heartbeat Ataash could feel, pounding away just short of panic. "You. What’s your name?" she asked, eyes settling on Ataash.

"Ataash Adaar. What’s your name?" Ataash asked, eyes narrowing. She knew a threat when she saw one, and this right here in the clearing - this was one.

"There are some who call me Flemeth. There are others who call me Asha’bellanar. You may call me what you wish."

“Tamassran,” Ataash decided with a glare. A couple of the others looked at each other and smiled. This woman had done nothing but talk since they had seen her.

"A fitting name, perhaps." The woman smiled. "I would teach you to change your shape, if you would learn."

"We don’t need your teachings," the tal-vashoth told her. “We do well on our own.”

"Oh, it’s not you I would teach. It’s her." the woman leveled a finger at Ataash, who bared her teeth without thinking. "That one would learn, and that one would put it to good use."

Ataash didn’t respond. The tal-vashoth studied her, then waved an arm.

"Let’s go back," he said. "Tonight isn’t a good night."

"Agreed," Ataash said. She pushed the fourteen-year-old - whose eyes were wide - ahead of her and turned her back on the woman. 

The woman stayed seated and watched them go.

They were just behind the slaughterhouse - one of the others had taken the girl up front, his lips pressed thin and face set - when Ataash turned back to look toward the clearing. There was no woman there, but there was a dragon, smiling at them, all teeth and scales and wings and knowledge she desperately wanted, no matter what she told the others. "Hey, Arisaarebas, I’m going to go back and make sure she doesn’t turn us in.”

"Good. Watch yourself, Ataash. You know what happens to the saarebas taken by the saarasala.” The tal-vashoth turned just enough to give Ataash a warning look. She nodded, and turned to go back into the woods. The fourteen year old looked at her, fear and admiration in her eyes. Ataash ignored her, and stepped back into the forest.


	13. Ataash Calls Everyone "Kadan" By The End Of The Game And You Cannot Tell Me Otherwise (This Is The FIrst Time She Does It To Solas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "inappropriately timed confessions w/ inquisitor + LI" for solassians  
> (yes i am aware that solas is not an LI for adaar. i also dont care because guess who doesnt hook up in this thats right solas and ataash)

"Could you pass me that knife, _kadan_ ,” Ataash murmured, pointing roughly in the direction of the knife laying to Solas’s left.

"Of course, Inquisitor," he said, passing it over with only a quirk of his eyebrow.

Ataash took the knife, blinked once at the staff in her hand, and looked up at Iron Bull, who sat across the fire and was practically leering at her.

“Parshaara, Valo-kasaad,” she snapped, eyes narrowing, sending a crackle of electricity down from her horns through her fingertips. She stretched and clenched her hands, making them spark more. Iron Bull just grinned wider.

"Is there something I’ve missed?" Solas asked, voice dry and eyebrows lifted.

"No," Ataash said, voice strong. She had immediately adopted the stance that was quickly becoming a joke around the hold - the I’m-the-goddamn-Inquisitor-and-everyone-I-have-ever-known-is-afraid-of-me-and-you-should-be-too stance. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Iron Bull.

"I think perhaps there’s something our dear _Arisaarash_ might want to tell you.”

"Not particularly," Ataash replied. She was full-on scowling now. "Not anything that I think should probably be discussed around a campfire."

"If you insist, Ariash," Iron Bull laughed.

"But you do plan on telling me?" Solas asked.

"Yeah, probably," Ataash muttered, returning her attention to the staff in her lap. She had already collapsed back in on herself, the way she always did when she carved. She wouldn’t say anything else, until after the fire had been put out and they had retreated to their tents. She could be heard murmuring to herself then - " _Shok ebasit talan. Kost varin kata. Talasala varin shokra. Asit tal-eb._ ” over and over.

~*~*~

"What I said last night!" Ataash bellowed over the heads of the three angry villagers mobbing her and threatening with pitchforks, towards Solas. " _Kadan_! it means I like you!”

"A lot!" Iron Bull yelled from the other side of the battlefield, where he knocked four more villagers back, only for them to be replaced with more. “It means she wants your-“ "No it doesn’t!" Ataash yelled over him, bringing down a fireball on his aggressors and sending them running while on fire.

"I’m flattered!" Solas yelped as he dodged a swing from a sword. the villagers had mostly stayed off him for some reason, but there was one who was after him with the fires of hell behind him. "But let’s discuss this another time!"

"If we were gonna die here, I wanted you to know!" Ataash called, slamming her staff into the side of a villager’s head with a resounding _cra-crunch_.

"Still not the right time!" Solas hollered back, ducking another swing. "We’ll talk later!"

"If you say so!" Bull laughed from where he had just taken down three more villagers, bringing the total down to twelve more to kill or disable. "If you can get her to say ten words to you after this, you’ll be lucky.”


	14. Ataash Cuddles WIth The Iron Bull Because Someone, Unfortunately, Thought They Were Married Or Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> solassians prompted: “‘Oops friend looks like the only place to sleep in this house is this small, twin-sized bed, guess we’ll have to share’ with hawke + LI or inquisitor + LI”  
> i was gonna romance solas but we all know how that turned out, dont we. so until we know the final romance, Ataash is unattached. if its blackwall, guess whos getting laid with the grey warden. if its vivienne, guess whos not gettign laid at all  
> in any case its funnier if ataash has to share a bed with iron bull because she hates his guts

The villagers had been kinder than expected to an elf, two qunari, and a pale, silent, observant man who wasn’t necessarily always all there. One family had cleared a space in front of their hearth, setting out four extra placesettings at Ataash’s request. Bull, Ataash, and the quartet of children stayed near the hearth, each of the children choosing their favorite qunari to climb on. Solas had volunteered in the kitchen, and Cole stood between the two rooms, keeping an eye on all gathered.

When dinner had wound down - it had been stew and bread and a little bit of watered-down ale, passed around and accompanied by stories and mission statements and a whole host of double entendres - the hosts had gone to get mattresses for the gathered party.

They came back with two.

It had come out at some point during the night that Cole wasn’t going to sleep - they had steadfastly avoided exactly why and were hoping no one would ask - but the appearance of two mattresses, rather than three, came as a surprise.

Ataash, being the accommodating woman she was, smiled and thanked them, and reassured them the gang could take care of themselves. When the family had retreated upstairs, the four of them huddled close to the fire to discuss their next course of action.

"They clearly thought I’m married to one of you," Ataash murmured, looking between Solas and Iron Bull.

"Probably him," Cole suggested, nodding to Iron Bull. "Since you’re both qunari."

Iron Bull gave Ataash his winningest smile, and she fixed him with narrowed eyes and a grimace.

"I don’t want to sleep with either of you.”

"Well, it’s either that or sleeping on the floor," Bull pointed out.

Ataash narrowed her eyes more, and he shrugged.

"Fine," she muttered, and shucked off her coat. "Bull, I’m with you. Ashkaari, you lucked out this time.” She rolled her coat into a semblance of a pillow, and tied her belt around it. She kicked her boots off and left them by the door. Around her, the others undressed and prepared - Solas stripped layers and rolled and bundled them into a makeshift blanket and pillow; Bull unbuckled armor and set it next to Ataash’s boots. Ataash tossed him her heavy embroidered jacket - some piece of Orlesian finery that was much more comfortable than she had expected, and so had kept - and he rolled it into a pillow. Cole settled into a corner to keep watch, the way he always did.

Solas huddled down under his blanket, and Bull lay down on his back. Ataash sat down next to him.

"If you so much as touch me during the night, I’ll take out your other eye with my bare fingers. Or a horn, whichever one is closer."

"I understand, Ariash,” Bull chuckled. “It won’t be me doing the groping.”

"I don’t know why I put up with you." Ataash sighed and settled down next to him. The mattress barely qualified as one - the straw inside it was moldered to almost nothing, and she could feel every lump of the floor against every bone of her shoulder and pelvis and legs. Iron Bull grunted once, and Ataash sighed and wiggled closer to him, her back against his side, head tilted just right to avoid stabbing him in the shoulder with her horns and to still keep her head on her improvised pillow. He curled his arm up around her - slowly, until one hand rested gently on her shoulder - and she silently and succinctly removed his hand. He didn’t pick his arm up off the floor after that.

~*~*~*~

"I was not cuddling you,” Ataash snapped. They had set out early, after they had been fed and watered and given well-wishes and tokens of thanks. Bull hadn’t brought it up until they had made it out of town and safely down the road - the two of them had woken up tangled together: legs intertwined; Ataash pressed against his side with her head on his shoulder; her arm across his chest; his arm around her back and his hand against her bicep; his other hand against her forearm. They had untangled themselves - with a few unimpressed groans from sleeping on the floor and in an uncomfortable position all night - and had proceeded to pretend nothing had happened until they had made it out of the village. Cole and Solas had quickly moved ahead, almost as if anticipating this as a likely occurrence.

"You were, Ariash. No worries, though. It happens.” Bull waggled his eyebrows at Ataash, who glared at him.

"Eventually I am going to decide I hate you enough I’m going to bring Cassandra along instead."

"Maybe you should bring the grey warden along," Bull suggested. Ataash had looked away just long enough to be able to turn another glare on him.

"He’d definitely be a step up from my usual valo-kas-inclined company,” she muttered, putting on a small burst of speed to trot ahead of Iron Bull, who laughed long and loud at her retreating back.


	15. Ataash And Solas Talk About Aspen Trees

"Aspen trees," Solas murmured, resting his hand against one and squinting up at the leaves.

"The watching trees," Ataash chuckled. "They scared me when I was younger. Still make me nervous." She rested her hand against the tree too, tracing over an eye-shaped knot in the wood with her fingers.

"You said you were the fifth generation, correct?" Solas asked, turning his gaze on her. She smiled up at the tree, whose leaves were starting to turn gold.

"Yeah. Taught by first generation, surrounded by first and second and third. Why?"

"Animistic beliefs typically take longer to manifest, especially without a strong animistic belief system to spawn from." Solas let his fingers trail down the bark before dropping his hand to his side.

"Animistic," Ataash repeated.

"Things, even nonliving things, have souls," Solas explained.

"The qunari are animistic," Ataash replied. "Their weapons or their tools are as good as their souls. It’s something a lot of tal-vashoth are torn on. Some of us like the idea. Some of them hate it. it all comes down to the individual.” Ataash shrugged. “They don’t have teachings on trees. I was never told a single story about a tree with a soul. But I knew when I looked at these damn trees - they’re watching. They know things. they don’t die.”

Ataash let her hand drop too, and folded her hands into her pockets.

"There was a fire in the woods one year. Lightning strike. The watching trees were the first ones to return after the fire." She shook her head. "I don’t trust a tree like that." "They’re good trees," Solas added.

"They’re alright. They rot inside out. I’ve taken a few down and been disappointed at what I found. If you get a good one, they’re good, but if they’re bad they’re irredeemable." Ataash nodded decisively at nothing in particular. "We oughta get a move on. Watching trees are nice and all, but we have a job to do, eh?" She smiled down at Solas, who flickered a smile in her direction.


	16. Ataash And Solas Discuss Vivienne and Staves (Disclaimer: I Have Never Had All Of Them In The Party At Once; That Is Too Many Mages)

“These are good staves,” Solas murmured. He was standing close to them, leaning in and squinting, his hands folded primly behind his back. It was a habit Ataash had noticed; she wasn’t sure if it was a non-vashoth thing, an elf thing, or a Solas thing.

“They oughta be, I made them,” she replied.. She smiled over at him and went back to work on her latest project – the skyhold kids had bright her five silvers they had collected among the twenty of them and asked her to make them a toy, please. She had taken the money and left it sitting on a shelf to be returned later in some surreptitious manner, and had gone out to find good wood to make toys for them. She was working on the seventh one now – a third elf, to go with three dwarves and a qunari.

“I had seen you carving the toys for the children, but I’ve never seen you carving a staff.” Solas straightened up and surveyed the staves holistically, eyes approving.

“You can try one if you want. They’re not enchanted, so they’re just big sticks right now, but it would be good to have someone else test the balance and reach on them. Without my brother around to test them for me, I’m all alone in trying to see if they’re too heavy or the balance is off. You can touch them, they’re not going to break.”

“It seemed rude to touch them without permission.” Solas hefted one and spun it a few times. He grinned. “These are good staves. Who taught you?”

“I did. One of my teachers knew how to hold a knife, but she wasn’t a woodcarver, not by any means. She showed me how to hold a knife and I just kind of came to this,” she waved the toy at the staves, “without meaning to. Something to do while the old people lecture you.”

“These are well-made, for someone self-taught,” Solas commented, whirling the staff around a little more, moving out into the open space of the room. Ataash paused in her carving to watch him. “I’ve handled staves like these before, and they’re typically mediocre at best.”

“Thanks. It’s been a lot of work.”

Solas thumped the end of the staff down into the thick carpet.

“Could I convince you to carve me a staff?” he asked, lifting the staff again and turning back to Ataash.

“Probably without much trouble. I don’t have anything the size of a staff around right now though.” Ataash gestured at her crate half-full of weird knobs and broken-off chunks of wood. “Next time we’re out I’ll find you something. You got a preference for a type of wood?”

“Something light.”

“I’ll see what I can do. You haul ‘em the same way I do? The little belt loop in the back?”

“Have you seen anyone carry them differently?” Solas quirked his eyebrows.

“No, but I figured if anyone would, it would be you.” Ataash shrugged, closing her eyes and setting her carving and knife aside. She rested the heels of her hands against the edges of her desk and crossed her ankles. She hmmed once. “I don’t think Arisaaraad carries hers that way. Too practical for her to stoop that low.”

“You really should give the First Enchanter more credit than you do.”

“I’ll give her credit as soon as I hear her use my name when she doesn’t realize I’m there. It really doesn’t bother you that you’re just another elf to them?”

“If I’m ‘just an elf,’” he made air quotes, smiling thinly, “I don’t get hauled into a circle. You have the virtue of being frightening to a good number of people simply by being you. Not all of us do. And while I’d prefer to be more, until now it’s sufficed as a way to survive.” Solas returned the staff to its place leaning against the wall. Ataash watched him closely. “What Vivienne does and acts like is a survival skill. We’ve all picked them up.” Solas smiled up at her. “Some of us retreat from society, some of us pick up unrelated trades, some of us make the best of a bad situation and gain as much power and influence as we can, even if we have to leave others behind to do it.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Ataash pointed out.

“Is it right to kill Templars who are doing what they’ve been taught to do? I wouldn’t want to be locked into a circle, but does that make them wrong for doing as they’ve been told?”

“I-” Ataash turned her head and glared at the opposite wall. Solas tried not to laugh at her incensed expression. “It’s not necessary,” she protested. “Look at you, at me, at my brother, at the Fade-blasted Champion of Kirkwall.”

“Four exceptions to a larger whole, Inquisitor. You’ve got to relearn how to think now that you’re outside of your village and in charge of the Inquisition. You don’t have room to make moral judgments here, not anymore.”

“I’m not making moral judgments, I’m trying to keep people like you and me safe and alive and free,” Ataash snapped.

“Ataashkost.” Solas held up his hands. “I think this is perhaps where I leave. Think about what I’ve said, Ariash. I know you don’t like the idea of moral greyness, but – perhaps it’s something you should think about.”

Ataash shook her head. “I’m not going to compromise what I believe for the sake of making everyone here get along better. I’ve made my position too clear already to backpedal now.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to compromise,” Solas agreed. “Just think about it. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s getting late and you, at least, have things to do tomorrow.” He smiled sweetly at her on his way out the door. She pulled a face after him, but smiled to herself when the door closed.


	17. Ataash Has A History In Valo-Kas And Also Is A Bleeding Heart

The girl is crying. Adaar can still let themself call the child a girl, because the girl is crying. The girl is not a weapon. The girl is not a warrior. The girl is a child.

"Ach," Adaar laughs. Adaar hates this. They hate this giving of children to someone else to raise, to teach, to turn into a weapon. It happens too much here. They are alone in this city, and the vashoth have to stick together. Bad things happen to vashoth who try to make it on their own. "There are worse places to be, yes?" Adaar asks, smiling at the girl. The girl is crying too hard to see or to care. Adaar tugs on the girls hand as they squat. The girl collapses next to Adaar, sobbing and cradling her head on her knees. "You could be qunari, yes? No voice, no free will. Instead, you are valo-kasaad. We watch out for our own, imekari. You will be safe here." Adaar reaches out and rests once hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. The girl jerks away and snarls.

“ _Saarebas_ ,” she growls at Adaar, who raises their eyebrows and snorts.

"I am," Adaar replies. "I have been called that so many times. You know what other names they call me? _Tamakataran_. Speaker to the dead. _Arikatagena_. The most important creator of death. I am here to tell you that you are safe with us. You are one of us now, whether you want to be or not."

"I don’t want to be," the girl warbles. "I want to be a woman, not a thing."

"There is someone else like you," Adaar stage-whispers, leaning in. The girl looks at her, pain in her eyes. "What we call each other when the others cannot hear is between us, eh? You are a woman, we call you a woman when no one can tell us we are wrong." Adaar shrugs. "The others don’t care what we do, as long as we don’t frighten them. Or, as the case may be, we frighten them into running a little faster." Adaar grins devilishly. The girl tries to smile, but has to stop to wipe her eyes. Adaar puts an arm around her shoulders. "We teach you to be a terrifying mage, you learn well, you’ll fit right in. There are five of us now. We will know each other very soon."

"I don’t want to be a weapon," the girl says.

"Then we make you a shield. Someone to protect instead of harm. It is a simple thing." Adaar shrugs. "Do you want to meet the others?"

"Yes." The girl nods decisively. They stand, but before they can leave the room - the others left a while ago - she taps Adaar on the shoulder. Adaar turns. "Arikatagena? Are you a man or a woman?" she asks.

" _Bas_." Adaar shrugs and smiles. "No one cares, here. The men call me male, the women call me female. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Spend enough time as nothing, and what you are doesn’t matter." Adaar shrugs again. "Follow me. Asaara will want to meet you. She’s the woman among us."

Adaar waves the girl down the hall.


	18. Shankatara Adaar Puts In His First Appearance, In A Modern AU With Ataash And Blackwall (See I Said There Was M!Adaar In Here It Just Took A While To Get To This)

Shan’s bed on the couch in the living room is becoming more and more permanent.

It’s strange how easily he falls back into the routine he had with Ataash for years, even with a third person in the relationship. It’s even stranger to watch someone else kiss Ataash, wrap his arms around her, and not feel jealous.

It’s a good feeling, he thinks.

And he’s glad Ataash has found someone else with the nightmares. It was hell for those early years, when she’d wake up every night, panting and sweating and just short of yelling or screaming from fear. The Warden has nightmares too, and the fact both of them come out to the kitchen at 2 AM in bare feet to make toast and talk to each other in quiet voices and touch and kiss and reassure each other of what’s real - he’s glad he gets a chance to see it.

So it’s a surprise when Ataash stumbles out of her bedroom one night and flops on top of him on the couch. He makes a strangled noise of surprise, but his arms come up around her back, the way they always did. She buries her nose in his throat, her hands wedges between their and uncomfortably close to certain parts of his anatomy (the last thing he needs right now, in the middle of the night, barely awake and able to process, is someone to accidentally trigger his dysphoria) and one leg between his, the other wedged down between the cushions and the back of the couch.

"Are you alright?" he asks her in qunlat. It’s the language of 2 AM talks about nightmares, always has been.

"Mm-hmmm," she replies, and he gently runs a hand over her back, shifting a little underneath her to make their position a little more comfortable. It doesn’t really help; they’re two very large people trying to work around each others’ horns and bodies and height differences.

"What did you dream?" he asks, gently dragging the backs of his fingernails down her back. The both of them remember it as a calming gesture from far, far back in their childhoods, and they’ve used it on each other at varying times. It seems appropriate.

"I-" she makes a discontented noise, and her hands tighten a little on his arms and her nose presses a little harder against his throat.

"Okay," he says. If there’s nothing to talk about, there’s nothing to talk about. Ataash chuckles against his neck. The sounds is weak, and more a stress response than anything else, but at least it’s an acknowledgement.

He falls back asleep before Ataash does, the way they always did in the old days - wrapped around each other and laying on their sides, legs tangled together, breathing the same air, hands on hips or arms wrapped around backs to keep each other in place, his head on her collarbones, her chin resting on the top of his head where she can lean one cheek against the remnants of his horns. He’s awake before her too, as the first light of dawn comes through the window. Even after seven years away from the qunari, that’s a habit he’s held onto. He doesn’t get up before sunrise now though, not like he used to.

He stays as still as he can, letting Ataash sleep a little longer. Blackwall smiles at him and nods as he walks past, preparing for a day of work. Shan smiles and blinks back; he can’t move his head without disturbing Ataash.

Blackwall holds up a note for Shan to see, and indicates he left it on the table. He nods to Ataash, and Shan blinks in reply. Ataash wakes up an hour and a half after Blackwall leaves. When she wakes, she extricates herself from Shan’s octopus limbs - hers weren’t any better, and easily marginally worse - and excuses herself to the bathroom. Shan goes to get his clothes from his suitcase.

They sit at the table to drink coffee and eat the toast and eggs Ataash has learned to make somewhere along the line. Every time Ataash walks past, she runs her hands over his hair. He obligingly hums at her, which gets a smile.

It’s a good feeling.


	19. Solas Says Dumb Shit About Qunari And Ataash Tears Him A New One, Because The Game DIalogue Was Not Sufficiently Incensed

He asks her about the anchor, expects her to assume she’s different because of it.

"I do not think I am," she says, and he nods. That any of this happened is impossible, for her to have remained the same is not so unusual in context. There has to be some explanation, though. "Why?" she asks him. He startles a little.

"You show a wisdom I have not seen since some of the most ancient memories of the Fade. You aren’t what I expected."

She laughs then, from deep in her chest. She’s laughing at him. He knows that tone.

"I am not different from anyone here," she says, and shakes her head.

"Not in body, perhaps." His hackles are up now. He knows when he’s being mocked. "But the quanri are savage, only held in check by the teachings of the qun."

She stops laughing.

"You are subtle in how you deal with others. You show wisdom I would not have expected from someone of your people." He plows ahead.

"Who are my people?’ Ataash asks, low and quiet. "Do you compare me to the qunari? Trained from birth to be weapons and creators in service of the qun? Who have known nothing but battles and hard training? Do you compare me to the Tal-Vashoth, stumbling in the dark to find their way with no one to guide them? Falling back on death because it is the thing they know best? Or do you compare me to the kossith, the people I did not know of until I asked the Iron Bull where we came from because no one has ever taught me? The people who, I have heard, I have nothing in common with? Or do you compare me to my people, the vashoth, the children of the refugees from the qun? DO you compare me to the people who have learned how to adapt? Do you compare me to the people who do not wish Thedas to fall to the qunari or the darkspawn or Corypheus? Or do you compare me to tyrants who would chain me and gag me and deny my identity even if they didn’t outright kill me? Who are my people you speak of?” she demands. She’s looming now, something she only does when someone’s hit a very deep, very raw nerve. He’s shoulder height in slanted ground, but here on the flat stone floor of her balcony, he is keenly aware of just how much smaller he actually is. She wouldn’t hurt him - at least not fatally, he’s sure - but that doesn’t really make her less intimidating.

She’s expecting an answer.

He doesn’t have one.

She is not qunari, not truly, not the way the Iron Bull or the Arishok is.

And she’s not tal-vashoth, no matter how often people call her such.

And she’s not kossith - he’s seen them in memories, and she is not one of them.

She is vashoth, but the vashoth do not exist in the fade, in memories. Only the qunari and the kossith and the tal-vashoth. She is no one, not really - she doesn’t exist according to most sources.

He’s traveled a long ways, but he has never met a vashoth.

They are few and far between, in the places they haven’t been driven out of.

"I-I misspoke," he says, trying to correct for his mistake. Ataash blinks once, slowly, eyes dead and mouth set in a hard line. "Most people are small, and petty. But you - you aren’t."

"While I appreciate the compliment, I’m still curious, to which group were you comparing me. You don’t misspeak, Solas. You say things and realize you should not."

"I was - I meant the qunari."

'The ones with the dreadnoughts and the plans for total control of Thedas.” She's leaned back a little, but her shoulders are still squared, and she's still looming. Her arms are crossed and her face is blank. “I expected as much.”

"I have disturbed you enough for the evening. I apologize. I will take my leave of you now."

He’s halfway to the stairs before she says anything.

"I have no history," she says to him, and he stops and turns to look at her. "You can complain about the Dalish all you want, but they have a history. If I can return it to them, then perhaps I can hope someone will return my history to me." She nods, and Solas nods back. There’s not really anything else to say. He turns again for the stairs, and has one foot on the top stair when she speaks again. "And do not compare me to the qunari. I am not qunari, and should not be compared to them. And even the qunari are not brutes. They are not unthinking force. They are people, and all that carries. I do not agree with their philosophies but-" she pauses and scowls, winkling her nose before sighing. "I had a lover who considered returning to the qunari despite the fact it would have been a death sentence. I cannot see them as less than people. Do no insult either of us by calling us things we are not."

She’s calmer now, not looming, leaning in the doorway and watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. She looks tired. She always looks tired now - Haven and Adamant and Halamshiral and Redcliffe and a thousand smaller things weighing on her. He heard her and Cole talking once, and she had laughed like she knew his answer when he said he could feel the weight on her shoulders, behind the too-brightness of the mark and whatever it was that had allowed her to pick up the orb and be marked with the anchor without dying. She’s quieter lately, even now that she speaks the language fluently. She watches more, says less, walks slowly, doesn’t have outbursts like this. The last time he saw her this emotional - this willing to kill fight, this willing to tear into someone - it must have been some time before Halamshiral.

He nods, and she nods toward the staircase. One side of her mouth quirks up as she watches him go.


	20. Horribly Sad Things about Shankatara and Cassandra, Definitely Not the First Thing About Him To Read

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for major character death?

"It’s only a cough," he laughs, but he doubles over the next time he does.

He spends the rest of the day coughing, and halfway to their destination, he tells the party to turn around and to send Harding and her scouts to negotiate instead. He gets most of the way back to the hold before he has to stop. Cassandra, Vivienne, and Varric stay seated where he asks them too, while he disappears a ways back into the trees. They can still hear his coughing, but it seems to ease a little after a few minutes.

When he comes back, his coat is buttoned all the way up, but he sounds like he’s breathing easier. He still ends up leaning on Cass to make it back to the Hold, and gags a couple times from coughing too hard. She helps him up the stairs to his quarters while Vivienne goes to tell Harding about her assignment. Varric makes his rounds to the others in the Hold.

"I’m fine," Shankatara tells Cass when she refuses to leave after getting him to his room. "I can handle myself. I’ve been sick before."

"I worry, inquisitor." She stays where she is, crossing her arm. Shankatara droops.

"Fine," he sighs. "At least close the door all the way and sit down."

Cass harrumphs, but her face softens and she leans against the desk. Shankatara sheds his coat and shirt and crawls under the blankets.

"Go do my job," he mumbles and grins at her. "I’ll be over this in a few days but at least let people think I’m still running things around here." He rolls over and tugs the blankets up around his neck, hunching his shoulders. Cassandra steps close enough to brush her fingers across his ear. It twitches and he gives her a half-hearted glare before he starts coughing gain.

"Sleep well and feel better soon," she tells him, and he makes a grumbly noise of assent.

~*~*~*~*~

A week later, Cass has started bringing him meals in bed. She’s the only one allowed in his room by his decree. He coughs a lot, but he can still keep his food down. Bull doesn’t even go in the same hallway, and when Cass asks why he explains that it looks too much like a sickness that runs through the dorms on Par Vollen often enough, that it only infects the qunari. The humans and the dwarves and the elves and the vox are unaffected. When Cassandra asks where he could have picked it up, Bull points out the half dozen tal-vashoth that Shankatara negotiated with a week and a half ago. A couple of them had coughs, and it wasn’t too hard to imagine he had picked it up in negotiations. Cassandra scowls, and Bull shrugs.

~*~*~*~*~

He has been in bed for two weeks, and the Inquisition is starting to worry.

~*~*~*~*~

It has been three weeks, and everyone knows. He still commands when he can, which is only an hour or two a day. He wheezes when he breathes, and no matter how hard he coughs, it doesn’t seem to help. Cass doesn’t leave his side unless she has to.

They are beginning to worry - the tear gets wider every day, and the inquisitor can’t even make it down the hall without needing Blackwall and Cassandra to come and carry him back to his room. The two of them stand and watch him while he dozes and coughs and wheezes.

~*~*~*~*~

It has been four weeks and even Sera has come to visit him, cracking jokes at him and hoping for even a feeble smile in response. It works; for the most part, he’s too loopy to care or feel uncomfortable around her.

~*~*~*~*~

He does not make it to five weeks.

~*~*~*~*~

Cass watches as Blackwall and Bull push the boat out into the water, and Vivienne lights the boat on fire from the shore.

She does not cry.

There is work to do, and they do not have the luxury of time or expendable individuals.

They must find a way to close the rifts, or all of Thedas will fall.

They do not have time for funereal rites.

"Shankatara," she says, loud and clear. Bull, standing next to her, nods.

“Shankatara," he agrees. "I will hear your death. We should rename the Inquisition." He laughs, but his hand on Cass’s shoulder is gentle. He guides her away from the shore after a few hours, when the boat has burned down to ashes.

He comes to her a few nights later, and traces a word out on a piece of parchment.

"He wouldn’t have ever told you what his qunari name was," he says, and presses the paper into her hand. "And he seemed like the sort who would’ve wanted you to know eventually. I did some digging after I found out what he was. He was too honest. He was a good kid."

Cassandra wraps her hand around the scrap of paper and shoves it in her pocket.

"There is work to do," she says, no thanks, nothing else. "He’s gone, there is nothing we can do."

Bull nods, and retreats from the room.


	21. Shankatara And Cass Discuss His Being Sick (And She Tells Him (Kindly) To Suck It Up) (AKA: An Apology For That Last Piece)

Shankatara has been sick for a week- the same cold that everyone else in the Hold has. He looks miserable, and he complains incessantly about his nose - the old break that skews it so badly makes everything involving his sinuses thirty times worse, according to him. Cass kisses him on the tip of his nose and teases him for the rest of the day. He gives her puppy-dog eyes the rest of the day in return.

When they both retire for the night - it took serious coaxing to get Cassandra out of her room to sleep in his - and they’ve both relaxed in their sleeping clothes, the curl up on the bed, Shankatara with his arms wrapped around Cass’s stomach and one leg thrown over hers. he sniffles periodically.

"You sound terrible," she laughs, rolling over in his arms. He flops onto his back. The next sniffle turns into a snort and he grimaces.

"I know," he replies, vague accent and heavy congestion making him sound strange. "I don’t want to be sick. Has anyone gotten better yet? How long does this last?"

"Only a little longer. Perhaps a week." She kisses his forehead, and she’s pretty sure he actually has a slight fever - definitely no worse than anyone else, and really just enough to be something else for him to complain about if he realizes it. She kisses the scars on his right cheek. "Go to sleep. You’ll get better faster."

"That’s lies. The tamassran tested it once. You don’t get better faster, you just spend less time awake and suffering.”

"You’re not suffering that badly," Cass laughs, smacking him on the shoulder. "We can get you soup tomorrow. That also makes you get better faster."

"If you say so," he sighs, and rolls onto his stomach to bury his nose in Cass’s shoulder. Cass wraps her hand around his where his arm is draped over her chest, and she feels him smile. He sniffles and makes a grumbly noise of detestation, and she laughs once.


	22. (NSFW) Shankatara Gets Pissed At The Iron Bull and Fucks Him Into A Mattress In Response

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> content warning for hatesex and serious D/s undertones. this is not a healthy relationship and is, in fact, not even A Thing. I do not advocate this at all. This is not a good thing. Do not do this

"What did you say to me?" Shankatara asks, voice low and dangerous. He can’t quite as deep as some of the other men Bull’s met who terrify him and also make him want to hop into bed with them, but it’s low enough it pings something deep in his animal brain.

Something incredibly, fantastically stupid.

So he repeats what he says, and when Shankatara - and what a shrinking violet of a man he is most of the time, all folded in on himself and silent and blushing at the slightest provocation - slams him into the wall and his brain short-circuits, well.

He’s not to blame if he shoves his tongue in the smaller man’s mouth and moans. The fact the other man’s hands tighten around his shoulders, fingertips digging into flesh, and he feels his dick stirring -

Well.

If the way the other man rolls his hips against Bull’s is any indication, it’s not an unwelcome gesture, even as Shankatara pulls away from the kiss and hisses invectives into Bull’s ear. They’re in qunlat, and he’s rusty and not quite sure what all of them mean, but there’s something about hissing nastier ones back and feeling Shankatara’s fingers dig in a little harder, his hips roll a little faster, that makes his dick grow a little harder.

Shankatara pulls away and glares at him before stalking off up the hallway.

He tries to remember the most discreet way back to his quarters.

***

He has Bull pressed against the wall, a thigh between his legs and hands on his horns. Bull’s hands ghost down his back, shoulders to ass, where they stop.

"No," Shanktara growls, and Bull obediently moves his hands back up, to Shankatara’s hips. "You don’t touch anything I don’t tell you you can touch."

"Alright, " Bull gasps as Shankatara’s teeth scrape along his jaw.

"Good," Shankatara growls, and shoves one hand down Bull’s rapidly tightening pants. "I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk, until your legs wobble so bad you can’t even stand. Until you stay out of my fucking business and let my past stay there.” He’s rough, all teeth and crooked nose and hard-muscled thighs and tad-too-long fingernails and scarred face and red irises. His hand wraps around Bull’s dick - at least he watches his fingernails there, if nowhere else - and strokes a few times, long and slow and torturous. Bull tries not to melt against him. “You’re a fucking glutton for punishment,” he laughs, and pulls away, wiping his hand on his pants and his mouth on the back of his hand. Bull whines - he’s hard and there’s no way to get back to his room without being seen like this, and while he jokes about his low standards, he does have standards, and not walking around with a raging boner is one of them.

"Take me back to your quarters," Bull pleads. "You brought me this far."

"I owe you nothing," Shankatara hisses, but hauls Bull around by the front of his shirt, and walks him - Bull stumbling backwards, Shankatara pushing him along by fistfuls of cloth - toward his quarters, just a few doors down the hall.

He shoves Bull unceremoniously through the door and toward the bed. He kicks the door shut and kicks off his boots, losing another inch of height. Bull keeps walking backwards, even after Shankatara lets go of him, and tumbles when he hits the edge of the bed with the backs of his knees.

"Turn around and strip," Shankatara orders. He’s already undoing the clasps on his fancy Orlesian shirt - he fills it out way better than Bull would have expected for such a tiny qunari - and Bull complies. He can hear rustling fabric and drawers opening and closing on Shankatara’s desk. He strips his pants first, and tosses them in an empty corner of the room. He wraps his hand around his dick and pumps a few times before he takes his shirt off too.

Shankatara harrumphs once - the man has an entire vocabulary made up of sounds that don’t involve real words, Bull would swear on whatever holy book you gave him - and Bull turns around to face him.

He’s standing there in just his binder and his underwear, wooden cock bobbing between his legs. He’s scowling too, the face of a man daring another to say anything because there are some things he will not excuse. They stare each other down for a long few seconds before Shankatara snorts.

"On your back, on the bed," he orders, pointing. Bull obeys, sprawling arms and legs across the mattress. This is a damn sight more comfortable than his bed, and he’s momentarily jealous before Shankatara is between his legs with one hand on his dick and the other digging into his ass where it’s wrapped around his hip. He strokes slowly, gently, his nose pressed into Bull’s hipbone. Bull tries to buck up into his hand, and Shankatara squeezes - not mercilessly, but far too hard for comfort. Bull whimpers and drops back onto the bed. “I set the pace here,” Shankatara growls from deep in his chest. “And you follow. Are we clear?”

"Yes," Bull wheezes. He hadn’t realized how hard it was to breathe until this very moment.

"Keep your hands off me," Shankatara continues.

Bull has never noticed the other man’s hands before - his own hands are square and hard, but Shankatara’s are long and thin with very familiar calluses on his palms and fingers from a sword. He’s noticing them now, as one lifts his leg so Shankatara can fit one thigh underneath his, and the other ghosting over his other hip, long fingers splaying across muscle and bone, leaving him exposed.

"In the top drawer, over there," Shankatara nods at the nightstand with his stack of books on it. "There’s oil in there. Get it. You’re closer."

Bull does as he’s told - he feels like at some point he should crack a joke about “yes sir” but he’s also thinking of the times he’s seen Shankatara run someone on the battlefield through with a sword and then light them on fire while they scream as they die, and he’s not sure why, but that makes a muscle in his stomach jump as he passes the vial to Shankatara.

He wets his fingers with oil from the vial, and presses them against Bull’s asshole. "This is alright, isn’t it?" he asks.

"Aww, are you worried for my wellbeing?" Bull asks, laughing. Shankatara leans over him until they’re nose to nose. His eyelids droop a little, and he smiles without letting it reach his eyes.

"They sewed my lips shut and treated me like an animal for five years," he murmurs, voice too calm to fit the words.

"I - yes, it’s okay," Bull confirms, not sure how else to respond. Shankatara grunts and presses his fingers against Bull again.

"Relax," he orders, and Bull does his best. Shankatara presses one finger inside, and Bull moans.

"You’re gentler than I thought you would be," Bull teases.

"Do you want me to shove my cock into you without prepping you at all? You into it that rough?" Shankatara asks, sarcasm dripping from his voice. He adds a second finger after soaking them again, and Bull grunts and twists a little under Shankatara’s hand. "Because I can go that rough, make it so you can’t walk for a week, can’t sit for longer. Leave people asking you what happened."

"By the Maker." Bull’s voice is strangled and he’s clutching at the sheets. Shankatara twists his fingers roughly, and Bull makes a noise somewhere between a squawk and a moan. "You think you can take me?" Shankatara asks.

"Best way to find out," Bull gasps, and spreads his legs.

"Oh, no. On your hands and knees," Shankatara orders, sitting back to give Bull room to turn over and pulling out his fingers. He wipes them on the bedspread before slicking down his cock with the remaining oil. Bull rolls over and spreads his knees, head down and breathing hard. Shankatara lines himself up and pushes in slowly, once, then faster and harder, until it’s just the slap of skin-on-skin and labored breathing. Bull lurches when Shankatara slams into him - he may be a small qunari, but he’s also apparently six feet of coiled muscle and unresolved anger.

Bull tries to push back into him, to get him to go deeper than he already is, and Shankatara claps one hand over his mouth and another around one horn and pulls back, twisting his neck at an uncomfortable angle.

"I’m in charge here," he hisses in qunlat. Bull nods as best he can - it’s not like saying anything will work when there’s a hand over your mouth - and Shankatara lets go of his mouth and his horn. He picks up his pace again, hands braced against Bull’s back in the dip just above his ass. Bull moans in complement to Shankatara’s grunts, but the two of them don’t speak again.

Shankatara wraps one hand around Bull’s dick, still thrusting. For as rough as he is elsewhere - his other hand is on Bull’s hip, fingers digging in hard enough to make him hiss - he’s gentle in regards to Bull’s dick. It would be funny if it happened in any other circumstance, but here it’s a relief.

Shankatara strokes Bull through his orgasm and pulls out gently afterwards, letting him flop onto his stomach on the bed. Shankatara gets up, and Bull grunts for him to stop. "Let me get you off," he offers.

"You don’t touch me," Shankatara replies. He has his back to Bull, and Bull sits up and reaches out or him. Before Bull can touch him, Shankatara has his wrist caught in a visegrip and his fingers pressed painfully far back. "You don’t touch me," he says again, letting go of Bull’s hand. "Get out of here. I don’t want you back here."

"So soon?" Bull laughs, but he gets up and goes to get his clothes. He casts a glance over to Shankatara, who is staring at his hands. Shankatara sighs, and Bull straightens up, still naked. "Are you sure you-"

"I said go," Shankatara snaps, turning to Bull. He’s too small like this, almost naked, hair mussed, covered in a sheen of sweat, voice cracking. "Just get out, unless you want me to fuck you again. I might fuck you over instead of just fucking you. Get out." he orders Bull with an uncomfortable resignation. "I don’t want to hear anymore of your ‘true qunari’ bullshit. Just leave, and don’t speak to me again." Shankatara inclines his chin and fixes Bull with an imperious glare.

"I’ve met people like you before-" Bull tries to say, and suddenly this is no longer Shankatara the Inquisitor, no longer Shankatara the ex-ben-hassrath, this is Shankatara the saarebas without an arvaraad. The air positively crackles and he is reminded of another name Shankatara held - Asaaranda. He beats as hasty a retreat as he can while dressing on the way out. He doesn’t try to start anymore conversations, doesn’t even try to look at the other man. He has to limp, knows he’s going to suffer for this tomorrow, but he’s also not sure he cares.

Shankatara watches him go, scowl etched on his face and twisted by scars.


	23. Shankatara And Vivienne Discuss A Variety Of Things

"You have healer’s hands," Vivienne comments to him one night at the dinner table. Shankatara looks at his hands, then down at the table, and blushes a little at what is clearly meant to be a compliment.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "I am told they are very similar to - to my mother’s."

"For a son to inherit his mother’s hands is an unusual thing." Vivienne smiles at him. "You wear them well."

"Ideally I would have been a tamassran, but I learned the Tome too well and got too good at a sword to be a healer and a teacher. And besides,” he pats his chest, and Vivienne nods. He shrugs. “I liked being ben-hassrath. I liked being saarebas much less.”

"Have you ever considered becoming a spirit healer?" Vivienne asks.

"I don’t talk to spirits," he says, and it’s a statement both of fact and of intent. Vivienne nods. They’ve had this discussion before, she’s not going to rehash it over something like this. If he needs something to hold on to that strongly in his life, who is she to begrudge him that?

"Then have you ever considered healing as a profession? With herbs and bandages?"

"Once or twice. I’ve picked up a few things, but not enough to call myself a healer. I had a friend who was better at it than I ever was, and they had no training. Just guessed. They said they watched a lot as a child, and learned that way, but I’ve never met someone cleverer with their hands."

"This friend -" Vivienne asks. She leaves it there, for him to fill in as he wishes.

"The one who named me. Shankatara was the last word I heard them say. They could hear the dead. It frightened me for a long time after I learned that. You can find it very useful in a battle though, especially once you have a reputation. Adaar would paint their face like a skull and lead the charge if we had to take someone down. A lot of people called them tamakataran. It was a good thing to be called.”

"And what were you?" Vivienne asked.

“Katagena, some days. Most of the time I was Asaaranda.” He shrugs and picks up his fork to prod at his food. His cheeks are flushing - he blushes so easily. “I think I like Shankatara better, though.”

"And your friend was named Adaar?"

"Yeah. I took that as - as what you would call a surname. It seemed right. Shankatara Adaar." He makes a soft noise somewhere between a snort and a chuckle, and grins. "Adaar would have liked it."

"Were you any more than friends?’ Vivienne asks. She knows that look, and assumes it’s cross-cultural if his friend Adaar was not also tal-vashoth.

"Sometimes," he shrugs and ducks his head. He blushes deeper red. "Adaar was the first person in years to treat me like another person instead of a danger to myself and others. That’s how we became friends but - they made jokes all the time, and believed the best of people, and was kind. There was a - a girl, who joined the mages in Valo-kas. Adaar took her out a few days later, and the two of them just spent the afternoon together, joking and getting to know each other. Adaar was invested in the group." He reaches up and rubs behind one ear. "Adaar made me talk to other people, be friendly. It was good for me. I’m deep, deep in Adaar’s debt, and I can’t do anything to repay that debt now."

"Perhaps you should follow what Adaar’s actions would have been, were they in your place," Vivienne suggests, leaning back in her chair. "That would be a fitting tribute."

"It would, wouldn’t it." he looks at his hands, one still clutching his fork. "Perhaps - perhaps spirit healing would not be unusual in that case. Adaar would have considered it."

"And perhaps there are others among us that you should speak to?"

"Who? Bull? That’s where I draw the line. I will not associate with him, no matter what Adaar would have done.”

"No. The young man Solas spends most of his time with. Cole."

"I-" his face contorts, and he sighs. "I’ll think about it."

"He holds no grudge against you, there is nothing to fear from him."

"He’s - he’s not human, and that makes me nervous." Shan looks down the table, to where the boy in question is sitting next to Solas, who is spinning some story to the elves gathered around him, mostly kitchen and serving staff.

"There are others here who are not human that you seem to have no problems with. Consider him different, instead of as a spirit."

"I -I’ll try." Shan clams up, then, one hand tucked into his lap, eyes cast resolutely down, blood slowly draining from his cheeks. His scars stand out when he blushes, make him almost cute, or as cute as a man over six feet, with dreadlocks and shorn-off horns can be. Vivienne enjoys watching him. He’s an observer too, and obvious about it. It makes for a challenge in subtle observation. He hasn’t called her out on it yet, and she suspects he won’t. He’s not the sort. They eat the rest of their meal in silence.


	24. Shankatara Goes To The Fog Warriors And Has To Face Real Life Outside The Qun

It’s strange to be standing among the Fog Warriors now, after he’s spent so long calling them traitors and cutthroats and a whole host of other nasty names.

But they took him in, freed his lips, and simply asked him to where he needed passage. he slept in one of their tents for three nights, and sat watching them go about their business during the day. No one seemed to pay him much mind, aside from offering him food at mealtimes or asking him for a hand hauling something in.

He doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and even then it’s simple things - thank you, you’re welcome, no thank you, yes, no, I have no name, I am going to Fereldan.

Mostly the children watch him. The adults act like they know the routine - they’ve seen enough refugees, from the Tevinters, from the qunari, to have seen every sort under the sun.

There’s an old woman in the boat with him when they push off from the shore. It’s foggy, has been for days. She’s elven, and rows the boat without a word. He sits with his hands on his knees, wrapped in the cloak they gave him on shore. They also gave him a week’s worth of supplies - not even enough to get him from the shore through the Imperium, let alone from the shore to Fereldan. They gave him a map, simplified down to something a small child could understand, marking places where it’s safe for him to stop. They know people, they’ve told him, people that both take mages - what a strange word on his tongue, mage, not saarebas - and tal-vashoth - and what a strange title for himself, a former ben-hassrath, who still has the entire tome memorized to give himself comfort on long nights packed in with the other saarebas.

The rocking of the boat starts to make him sick, and soon he’s bent over, head between his knees, and occasionally leaning over the side of the boat to gag and cough. The woman rowing the boat clucks her tongue sympathetically.

"I didn’t think you would be one of them who would get seasick," she tells him with a smile. He tries not to glare at her; he has enough problems without pissing off his rescuers too.

"I am," he moans. he’s never left Par Vollen - his unit in the antaam has never been deployed across the oceans - and he feels like this is probably not the most dignified way to make his escape.

"It’s only another couple hours. You can make it until then. The first bunch we’re sending you to will take care of you. Get good, hearty food in you, give you a decent place to sleep. You’ll be on land from here on out. You’ll make it out alright. I’ve seen people do worse on the passage and end up doing well enough they help others along the way instead of leaving them. We’ll get you where you need to be. At least you’re not gibbering about needing to go back because all of this was a mistake."

He snorts.

"What do I have to go back to? Chains until my certain death? Doesn’t sound very appealing."

The elf laughs and rows a little harder.


	25. Shankatara Asks Cassandra Out (Or As Close To "Asking Out" As You Get in A Psuedo-Medieval Apocalyptic Setting)

"Seeker, may I - may I speak with you?" The blood is already coloring the tips of his ears, and his hands are folded behind his back the way he does when he’s nervous and trying to puff himself up to cut a more intimidating figure.

"Of course, Inquisitor," she replies, and saunters after him. He heads toward his quarters, and she follows.

He doesn’t even go all the way up the stairs, just to the second bend, and waits.

"I, uh. Wanted to speak to you about something."

Their normally taciturn inquisitor is blushing a deep, deep red, and clearly trying very hard to not stutter over his words.

"Of course, inquisitor. What did you want to talk about?"

"I - I think you’re very - very pretty, and I was wondering if I could - could court you?"

"You wish to court me?" she repeats, doing her best to keep the smile out of her voice. He was cute like this - it was easy, sometimes, to forget that he had emotions under the silent, angry exterior.

"Yes," he replies. The blush has crept down his face onto his neck.

"Courting is, perhaps, an unnecessary process." She takes a step closer. He’s very attractive, even with the scars that mar the sides of his face. She’s caught herself a couple times - staring at his ass, his back, his arms, fantasizing about falling into bed with him. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, he’s funny, or sharp, or honest, and he’s got a good voice too.

"I - I’m sorry. I overstepped my boundaries," he says, and she realizes that he thinks she’s telling him no.

She leans up to kiss him; puts her hands on his cheeks and pecks him on the lips.

He practically falls over backwards, jerks away from her and plasters himself to the wall, eyes wide.

"I - I -" he stutters. His voice has jumped high, and Cassandra takes a step back. She’s really not sure what the hell just happened, but she’s not going to try to touch him again, not without him knowing it’s going to happen, not if she’s made her point wrong.

"I’m sorry," she says, and puts her hands behind her back. Her face is warm; she’s pretty sure she’s blushing too. Shan is staring at her.

"So - so you - please warn me if you’re going to do that," he says. His arms come down, and he leans heavily against the bricks. He sighs, and all the tension goes out of his muscles. "I don’t - please."

"Of course, inquisitor. My apologies." She nods in acknowledgement. She hopes that wasn’t the death knell.

"But you - you wouldn’t be - averse, to the idea?” he asks. He’s slid down the wall, and is looking up is at Cass with hope in his eyes. He look so much smaller like this. All his clothes are too big, although Cass is pretty sure Vivienne got some tailored specifically to him. She’s never seen him wear them.

"Of course not, inquisitor. You are an attractive man, and you want to do what is best for people."

"Thank you," he says, and ducks his head. His blush had faded some as shock had drained the blood from his face, but it’s back full-force now. Cassandra offers him her hand, and he takes it. When he stands, he’s not much taller than her, and he leans in a little. "May I kiss you?" he asks.

"Of course," Cassandra replies.

He leans down and presses his lips to hers, gentle, close-mouthed, still questioning. She lets her hands drift to his hips, and his come to rest on her shoulders. When he pulls away, his eyes are cast down, but he’s grinning - a wide, toothy, genuine thing she’s never seen before. He looks younger, smiling, even with the way the scars pull his lips oddly in places.

"Thank you," he says.

"Of course, inquisitor." Cassandra replies. She’s really not sure what protocol for this is.

"You can call me Shan," he laughs. "The qunari word is kadan. ‘Inquisitor’ is too formal, and ‘Shankatara’ seems inappropriate.”

"If it’s your name, why is it inappropriate?" Cass asks. Her hands are still on his hips, and he doesn’t seem intent to move them. He’s still blushing, but it’s faded.

"It was one of the last things my last lover said to me. They were joking, because they had nightmares about - nightmares about spirits. They joked they could see people’s deaths coming for them. It means ‘I will hear you die’ with the understanding that your death is a command. it’s…" He laughs and ducks his head to rest his forehead against Cass’s. "It’s not exactly romantic.”

"Perhaps a nickname is better then. What does it mean? It’s a part of your name, but I don’t know enough qunlat to know what it means.”

"It’s part of another word. a greeting, ‘Shanedan.’ It means ‘I’ll hear you.’ ‘Katara’ is what you yell as you stab a sword through someone’s stomach."

"Shankatara," Cassandra says. "Shan."

"Mmm-hmm. Can I kiss you again?"

Cassandra kisses him, and he reciprocates.

When they pull apart, he asks, “And what should I call you? ‘Seeker’ seems awfully formal.”

“‘Cassandra’ is fine, inqu-” She stops herself. “Shan.”

He laughs and slowly leans down to kiss her again.


	26. (NSFW) Cassandra Ogles Shankatara Because The Man Has An Ass

He’s helping haul wood for the fireplaces in from the wagons. Cass has watched him at work before, and from the few places she’s touched him -arms, hips, back - she knows he’s all lean muscle.

But the man has an ass.

She really just wants to touch it, maybe squeeze it a little to get that one specific yelp out of him that makes him blush and dig his nose into the crook of her neck. She wonders, if they were naked, if he would kiss or bite then, instead of just blush and mutter something at her while making a half-assed attempt to glare.

He’s got good thighs too, she wants to dig her fingers into them, squeeze, hold him tight and ride him.

He’s got his sleeves rolled up today too, and even with as many scars as crisscross his forearms, they’re obviously musclebound, and with his long fingers and palms-

She shifts in her seat.

From this vantage point, she can see his biceps and triceps when he straightens up, arms around the bundle of wood. She really shouldn’t be surprised at the muscle she can see there, but. The way he shrinks in on himself makes it easy to forget sometimes.

He’s thick through the waist and stomach too; she’s never touched bare skin but she has run her hands across his stomach in just his undershirt before. He had laughed and tugged her too close to tickle him or touch anything else.

She really just wants one thing here.

She wants to drag him to the bed, push him onto his back, and ride him until he whines for mercy. She wants him blushing, wants him begging and thrusting and handsy and barely speaking the king’s tongue. She wants him laid out naked, wants to touch every one of those exquisite muscles, wants to trace his scars with lips and tongue and fingers until he moans.

She _wants_.


	27. Ataash's Brother And Shankatara Get Pissed, Have to Be Hauled Away By Cassandra, Blackwall, And The Iron Bull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring toomanyducttapetoomanyrope ‘s bin-ysrit adaar  
> (also ataash, but only obliquely)  
> (bin-ysrit is ataash’s younger brother, and escaped with her and joined valo-kas. he and shan never particularly got along, but at least they could compromise)  
> (Has a sequel [here](http://bin-ysritadaar.tumblr.com/post/101391147955/it-was-only-five-minutes-after-he-had-stomped-into).)

Bin-Ysrit kicks the door shut behind him as he enters. Shankatara gets up out of his chair and watches the other man step into the room.

"You just going to move on like she never existed?" Bin snaps. "Like she wasn’t worth anything?"

"She was my lover," Shan shoots back. He’s leaning forward, not too aggressive, but clearly not laying down either. "Not just your sister. I mourned like she would have wanted and moved on like you should have."

"Is that what they teach qunari to do? Bottle it up and fuck someone else to cope? She’d think that was disgusting."

"And lashing out at the only person you had in common and fucking a practicing qunari is any better?"

Both their hackles are raised, and the air in the room crackles; blood wells from Bin’s palms where his fingernails dig into flesh, and Shan’s hands drift back and his lips press tight, reminiscent of his years as a saarebas.

"Do you think anyone here doesn’t know he’s fucking you?” Shan sneers. He’ slight on his feet, not anchored and with arms wide the way Bin and Adaar always were.

"I’m not fucking him to fill a void in my life," Bin shoots back. He takes half a pace to his left, angling toward the side with Shan’s worse eye.

"No, you’re fucking him because you think dumb shit doesn’t affect you because your sister always saved your ass." Shan turns his head to follow Bin - as long as he keeps both eyes on him, he’ll be alright.

Shan keeps the desk between him and Bin, but he’s watching the drops of red dripping down Bin’s palms. He knows blood magic when he sees it; every nerve and fiber of his being is screaming for ben-hassrath training to kick in, to synthesize what he knows to turn himself back into a killing machine, to put the danger down for good.

But he has to wait.

He has to at least do that for Adaar.

He can’t kill her brother for this. Not without being attacked first.

So when Bin brings his hands up and the red begins to spin around them, Shan teleports behind the other man, slams a fist into his kidneys, and sends him gasping and stumbling forward. He hauls Bin around, grabs his wrists, and bears him to the ground, one knee on his stomach, other leg out to the side just for support.

"Don’t do this," Shan hisses. He can feel the tendrils of the blood magic’s power spiraling up his arms, but he’s had his wrists bound before, in fact he’s done magic with bound wrists, it’s no more than the usual discomfort. He leans in until their noses brush. “Let me go, walk out of here, I’ll pretend we never had this conversation. You let me grieve, I let you grieve.”

He feels the magic creep up to his elbows and begin to constrict. Bin is writhing underneath him, trying to throw him off or dislodge him. Shan picks up his arms by the wrist and slams them into the stone floor; he feels the crack but doesn’t hear it, and Bin hisses between his teeth. Bin rolls them, and Shan keeps rolling, avoiding getting trapped under Bin’s greater weight. Bin grabs for his ankle, ready to upend him, and Shan teleports away again, around behind him. Bin swings his leg to catch him, and Shan goes down with a grunt and a crack as his elbow hits the floor too hard.

But this is what he trained for, this is what he is, and suddenly he’s fourteen again, the smallest in his unit, as one of the kabethari tries to break for the door. He chases after her, and the woman falls under his sword.

He doesn’t have a sword here, not a physical one of steel, but he remembers Vivienne’s lessons on the ways of a knight-enchanter, and there’s a sword in his hand, summoned straight out of the fade, edge of the blade pressed along Bin’s throat as he leans over to grab Shan.

"Walk away," Shan tells him, one more time. "Walk away."

"No," Bin replies.

Before Shan or Bin can move, the door bursts open and Cassandra and Blackwall stand in the doorway, followed by Iron Bull. Both men freeze, Shan with his face twisted into a snarl, Bin with his eyes narrowed, his bleeding palms pressed into Shan’s shoulders.

Bull squeezes past Cass and Blackwall ,and gently pulls Bin away. Bin stumbles, eyes widening. Shan glares after him, even as Cass helps him to his feet. Blackwall keeps himself carefully positioned between the two qunari - not like he could stop either of them if they wanted to blast through him, but to at least give the illusion of something between them. He follows Bin and the Iron Bull out of the room, and closes the door.

"What happened," Cass demands as soon as the latch clicks.

"He misinterpreted my actions, attacked me, and used methods that label him maleficar to the chantry and as no more than an animal to be put down to the qunari." Shan wraps one hand around his elbow, wincing at even the faint pressure.

"And what actions of yours did he misinterpret?"

"He thinks I’m slandering his sister’s memory by being in a relationship with you. He thinks she would have sat and moped and wanted me to regret everything I ever did, as if Adaar ever stopped moving forward long enough to look back." Shan rubs at the smears of blood on his shoulders, he swallows hard when he sees it on his hand. He curls both hands into fists at his sides, flinching at the pain in his elbow as it straightens.

"What did he do?" Cass asks.

"He’s a blood mage, and he has an unhealthy fascination with the qunari."

"Do we need to keep the two of you separated? You’re our only hope for stopping this disaster from spiraling out of control, if you’re at each others’ throats, that won’t happen." "Then keep him off me, and I can do my job," Shan snaps. He moves to wipe the blood on his shirt, but stops himself before he actually does. He purses his lips, looks forlornly at his hands, then steps around Cass to leave the room without another word.

Cass follows him at a discreet distance, until he locks the door to his quarters.

Then she turns around to go find Blackwall, the Iron Bull, and Bin-Ysrit, apparently the resident blood mage and man of bad ideas.


	28. Shankatara And Ataash Get Stoned, Featuring Help from A Friend's F!Lavellan (She's Shown Up Before) Also Blackwall Is Here????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> content warning for drugs

"Shan?" Moran calls after him, just before he climbs into the cab of the truck. He steps down and raises his eyebrows as he looks back. "I have something for you."

"Oh." he trots back up to the door and startles when Moran presses the plastic baggie into his hand.

"Ask Ataash about her pipe and her lighter. Relax a little." Moran reaches up to pat his cheek; he’s a foot taller and staring with wide red eyes.

"I - I’ll ask," he says, tucking the baggie into his pocket. The flush is creeping up his neck and cheeks, and Moran grins at him. She waves him off the stoop, then waves to Ataash, who waves back as she pulls out of the driveway.

They drop their latest cargo for the underground off at the safe house - it’s a fourteen year old girl and a newborn infant she keeps clutched to her chest. Shan sits as close to the door as he can manage, giving the girl and the infant as much space as he can. Ataash is the one to walk them to the door and go inside to introduce the girl to her rescuers of the next few days. When Ataash comes back, she’s gone sober, and Shan reaches out to hold her hand across the seat.

"It was a templar’s," Ataash tells him. She’s slipped back into qunlat, the way she does when there’s no one else around. There’s venom in her voice, the dangerous sort he associates mostly with the especially nasty deaths she was responsible for. "That’s why she ran."

"She’s out now. Where is she headed to?"

"Tevinter, they’re thinking. She’s human, she won’t have to deal with the prejudice against elf-bloods." Ataash sighs and worms her fingers out of Shan’s. "She’s young. They don’t have anyone here to put her with, to help her raise the child?"

"I don’t know," Ataash sighs, and throws the car into gear. She drives back the way she always does, careful and relatively slow, but her eyes are distant, and she doesn’t sing along to the radio.

They’re at the door to the apartment, Ataash fumbling through her key ring, when Shan remembers the baggie of weed in his pocket. He pulls it out.

"Moran gave this to me," he tells Ataash, holding it out. She stops her fumbling and looks at the baggie.

"She gave you weed?’Ataash asks, a grin creeping across her face.

"She did. Told me to ask after your pipe and your lighter."

Ataash laughs and wraps one arms around Shan’s waist. She squeezes and shakes him a little, and he smiles at her. Watching Ataash come out of her shell is a beautiful thing.

"We have plans for tonight," she tells him, and drags him through the door as she finally gets the key in the lock. Shan laughs and stumbles after her.

**

They’re huddled together on the pull-out couch, since Ataash refused to try to squeeze both of them on it any other way. They’re both stoned as fuck, Ataash turning into the giggly, clingy person she always does when she’s drunk or high or just has no inhibitions left, Shan holding her hand and taking hits off the pipe.

Ataash leans over and pecks him on the cheek after he shares a particularly clever bit of wordplay. She squeezes his hand then, and turns his face toward hers - slowly, giving him ample time to pull away as she leans in and carefully presses her lips to his.

It’s been years since they’ve kissed, but it’s still slow and easy and no faster than he’d want. Ataash can still read him like an open book, her hands ghosting down to his hip while his slide up to her shoulders. She pulls away and he half-followers her - Maker it feels good to be touched again, to hold someone and to be held, to kiss someone and not worry about what was under his clothes and how they would react. Ataash is looking at him, gauging his reaction.

He leans forward and slips her some tongue, and that’s it, he’s being rolled onto his back and they’re laughing and Ataash’s hands are on his sides sliding his shirt up, peppering kisses on his face and neck, watching him giggle and giggling in return. She grinds down against him, and his hands tighten on her hips, pulling her down. She kisses him again, and she’ gained an awful lot of skill since they last did this. He moans into her mouth, and she make a noise back, finally breaking the kiss to breathe.

"Is this alright?" she asks. Her irises have almost disappeared, between being high and being horny. She’s goddamn beautiful like this.

"Yeah," he says, voice too high and too strained. "Yeah, this is okay."

"You sure?" Ataash asks, pushing his hair off his shoulder and bundling it together above his shoulder.

"Yeah," he replies, and pulls her face down for another long, breathless kiss.

Aaash hears the door open, but it’s Shan who sees it, who sees Blackwall stop on the threshold and stare. He pushes Ataash off, tugs his shirt down, and scrambles off the couch, banging on leg on the sharp metal frame in his desperation to get away. Ataash rolls over, surprised, to see Blackwall.

"Oh," she says.

Blackwall wrinkles his nose, but steps the rest of the way into the apartment and kicks the door shut. He set the groceries on the table and begins to unpack them without a word. Shan stays on the floor, the pull-out between him and Blackwall. His high is rapidly turning into a low, and he can feel his heart rattling in his chest. He knows jealousy, he’s seen enough people to know that past behavior isn’t the sort of thing that can predict for this situation and really he’s at fault here, he should have stopped her, should have said no, should have done something, he’s not going to be welcome here anymore, he’s going to have to leave his friend and-

"You should have Shan teach you how to kiss," Ataash informs Blackwall, stretching out on the pullout and folding her hands behind her head. He can see what she’s doing - not deflecting, per se, but changing the subject.

"Is that so?" Blackwall asks.

"Mmm-hmm. He’s better with his tongue."

Shan can practically hear the eyebrow waggle in her voice, and it makes him blush. They all know exactly what she actually means, even though he doubts she can judge his skill now. He had his hands under her shirt, but he was nowhere close to head-between-the-thighs level.

"Is he really?" Blackwall turns around and raises his eyebrows, looking first at Shan, who isn’t sure whether to be terrified of the man currently holding a can of Quaker oats or to blush a deep, deep red. His body decides for him, and he can feel the heat creeping up his cheeks. Blackwall is laughing, his eyes crinkling, and he turns his gaze on Ataash. "You think he’d give me lessons?"

"I dunno." Ataash rolls over. "Would you give him lessons?"

"I - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to -I didn’t - I should have-"

"Son, if I was mad, you’d know it," Blackwall says, rearranging boxes of Bisquik and stuffing and cake mix in the cupboard until he can add a box of cereal.

“‘Son’?” Ataash squawks, laughing.

"Lass," Blackwall shoots back. "You could’ve warned me. Set me a text or something, I coulda left you to it."

"You’re not mad?" Shan asks, still processing. His fingers are curled in the carpet, the only thing keeping him from running.

"You two have history, and apparently you kiss better than I do. You’re a good man, and from what I’ve heard, you’re faithful too. Not like I could really complain about you, as long as you’re willing to make dinner sometimes. And I don’t have to see you naked." Blackwall starts setting out ingredients for dinner. "Come make yourself useful. You sound high, but I’m pretty sure you can still handle a frying pan."

Ataash laughs, and Shan, cowed, stumbles to his feet.

He’s been pressed into service by the man his best friend is dating, after being caught making out with said best friend.

It feels like some terrible sitcom.

He goes to stand next to Blackwall, though, and takes the frying pan as instructed.


	29. The Party Gets Jumped By The Qunari And Shan Gets Kidnapped, Josie Is a Babe And I Love Her More Every Day

They’re jumped by the qunari in central Orlais.

Shan is the last one to fall, Cass can see the fear in his eyes. None of the party is dead- just unconscious, and the qunari seem to have the decency to dump slow-acting potions in their mouths, before Cass’s vision goes dark and all she remembers is the way Shan screams.

When the three of them wake up, the qunari are gone, and Shan with them.

They go back to the Hold - there’s nothing they can do, all they can do is hope that the Qunari see that they need the inquisitor, that this will not be solved without him.

Three weeks go by, and unrest has begins to stir, in Orlais, in Ferelden, in the Free Marches and even in Tevinter. What remains of the Inquisition does what they can to mitigate the damage - they delegate, and deal with things in their own ways. Cass hurls herself into her work, three times as focused as she was before.

He returns in the middle of the night, the glow of his hand his defining mark. There are scabs across his face and arms, and he doesn’t speak. He slumps against the doors of the Hold, too weak to stand under his own power.

He’s carried up to his quarters, and the healers are called in to dress his wounds.

He stays there for days, not speaking, even to Cassandra. There are new scars around his lips, and there are chafe wounds around his wrists and ankles. She can see the whipmarks on his backs and legs, knows his horns are shorter than when he was taken, and his head is shaved. He looks so much smaller like this, collapsed in on himself. Bull leaves a week after Shan returns, cites the fact he’s been called back to Par Vollen, sent off on another assignment, that maybe someone will arrive to take his place in the next month.

No one ever arrives.

Josie is the one who receives the first note, tacked to her door sometime during the night. The writing is shaky and she has a hard time distinguishing the words, but the message becomes clear enough after enough time spent looking at it.

"Do not deal with qunari-" "qunari" is written in the alphabet of the people mentioned, and Josie has to break out the dictionary to figure out what it says- "They have threatened full-scale march against Thedas. I am willing to meet Tevinter representatives. Cannot speak. I need a translator."

Josie begins putting accounts in order, gets a messenger out with a missive to the representatives from Tevinter, begins leafing through the books in the library looking for signing languages. He leaves her a few more notes, and one night she stays up until she hears him shuffling in the hallway outside her door. She opens the door before he can walk away, and smiles at him. He looks tired and sick, too thin, his scars standing out too much in the dim firelight from the candles on the walls. His cheeks are sunken and the circles under his eyes are darker than the bruises he showed up with. He looks at her, startled, and she waves him into her quarters. He steps in, bare feet silent on the thick rug. He keeps his arms around his stomach, and Josie can tell he’s not wearing his binder. He looks tired and sick and like everything is too much. She doesn’t say a word as she ushers him to the armchair in front of the low-burning fire, all but pushes him down into it, and goes to get the stack of books from her desk. She brings them back and sets them on the table, then goes to get a stool for herself.

"I found some books for you," she says when she returns. Shan is looking at her with wide, almost-frightened eyes. "Most of them aren’t especially good for our purposes, but they do have information in them that could be useful."

Shan leans forward to look at the book in her hands, and carefully hefts it into his lap. He traces his fingers over the letters carved in the cover, his lips moving. He smiles when he parses the words, and grins over at Josie. He looks healthier already, just by smiling. He flips the book open, sees a dozen pages of solid text, pulls a face, then flips to the back of the book. He runs his finger down the lists of words and translations before he finds the one he wants, then flips to the appropriate page. He tilts it up, so Josie can’t see what he’s reading, and she watches him expectantly. After a minute of furrowed brows and twitching hands, he sets the book down, looks at Josie, and signs the word “friend.”

His hands are clumsy, but he looks unbearably proud of himself. Josie signs the same thing back, and Shan’s face nearly splits from his smile. He laughs - the same sound she could only get out of him once in a while before. He flips back to the index again, and Josie leans over to see what he’s finding. He lands on “thank you,” and flips to the appropriate page.

His words are still clumsy, but he’s clearly thrilled to have any words again.

She doesn’t ask if he can’t speak or won’t speak, because at some point it doesn’t really matter.

They sit together until dawn breaks, figuring out how the words work, flipping through book after book. They find the word for the places each of them come from - Josie laughs at how Antiva is the same symbol as for murder, but signed in the shape of an A, while Shan sobers at the word for mage - left hand out, the same way he does when he closes rifts, signing the letter M besides.

When they realize dawn has broken, Shan shuts back down, closing the books spread across his lap and legs - they moved to the floor - and restacking them neatly. He tugs at his shirt collar, and without prompting, Josephine brings him a too-large, dark blue robe some noble or another had donated to her in an act of “charity.”

"Wear this," she tells him. "No one will look too closely. I can come with you if you’d like?"

He signs thank you again - already it’s easier to understand, his fingers and hands more dexterous - and gives her a pinched smile. He tugs the robe around himself, still keeps his arms wrapped over his stomach, and Josie holds the door for him. He steps out, and Josie can see that he’s already hunched his shoulders up and started slumping again. She taps his shoulder and squares her shoulders. He looks at her, and one corner of his mouth quirks up.

He straightens up, and if he wasn’t wearing a robe that’s clearly not his, clutching himself tightly, and smiling, he would be terrifying. Josie smiles and pats his bicep. She walks next to him, all the way back to his quarters. He nods to the people scuttling around the Hold, who nod back. One of them even smiles, and he smiles back.

Josie brings the books to him later, when she takes time off from her schedule to eat lunch. He’s eating too, sitting on his bed, legs crossed, reading through the latest round of correspondence from their allies. His food is chopped and mashed so fine it’s nearly pureed, and he nods for her to come in. She hauls the books over to his desk, and he follows her over. He signs “thank you” again, and she nods.

"I’ll talk to Cass, tell her to start reading up so she can understand you. Do you need anything else?" she asks, folding her hands behind herself. Shan shakes his head, looks to the tray of food sitting on his bedspread, and shakes his head. "Send me a note if you need anything. Do you need more food? You’re awfully thin."

Shan plucks at his shirt and makes a face like, “who, me?” He grins and laughs. He shakes his head as his smile fades. He points to his food, then to the balcony, miming dumping his food over the edge. Josephine gives him a severe look. He shrugs, points to his stomach, points to his mouth, shakes his head, and shrugs again.

"Not hungry?" Josie asks. "What sorts of food would you prefer? I’m sure we can get some of it in, if not all of it."

Shan shuffles and blushes before he goes to his desk. He writes for a few long minutes, then hands the piece of paper to Josie. It’s covered in his scrawly handwriting, all in pencil and smudging under his thumb.

It’s a list of ingredients and instructions.

He looks pleased with himself.

"I’ll pass it along to the kitchen. Should I send Cassandra up?"

He stops and thinks for a moment, then slowly nods. She’s been allowed in only with the healers since he returned, and she paces incessantly, everywhere, driving the rest of the Inquisition up the goddamn wall.

"I’ll send her up. You might want to prepare yourself. Have one of those books handy."

Shan grabs one of the books and holds it like a shield, making a mock-frightened face, which has both of them giggling in a second. He lowers it and flips it open to a given page, and waves Josie toward the door.

When Cass comes up the stairs - relieved to, at last, be allowed to see him again - he’s standing on the far side of the room, and before she can launch herself at him, he does something with his hands. She doesn’t understand what, and before he says anything, he points to the book laying open on the bed. Cassandra looks down at it, reads the page, then looks back up at Shan, who is beaming at her.

"Can you speak?" she whispers, afraid to break the silence, afraid to ask if he meant what he just signed.

Shan shakes his head and opens his mouth as wide as he can. He tilts his head down so she can see.

"Oh," she says, and he can hear the heartbreak in her voice.

He shrugs and walks around the end of the bed.

He wraps his arms around her, and she leans into his chest.


	30. Ataash Discusses Qunlat Words With The Iron Bull, Varric, And Solas

Ataash shook her head. “Qunlat doesn’t have a word for ‘family.’ The qunari don’t have a concept of it. There’s a vashoth word, don’t know how widely it was used but - we always said _kadantaam_.”

Bull laughed from his place a few steps to Ataash’s left. Ataash watched him carefully from the corner of her eye, waiting for a smart comment. Solas and Varric both remained silent, waiting for some sign from either of the other two.

"Would you like to explain why that’s funny?" Ataash asked after the silence had settled in.

"You Vashoth are quick to deny the qun, but you use its language for your own purposes."

"The language has served for hundreds of years under the qun and outside it. I see no reason to discard a useful tool. Or are you going to tell me that’s the qunari way of thinking too?"

"I am sure you are well-aware it is." Iron Bull was chuckling to himself. Ataash rolled her eyes.

"For those of us not in the know," Varric interjected. "would you please explain why this is funny?"

“‘ _Kadan_ ’ is a term of endearment,” Ataash informed him. “And the ending ‘- _taam_ ’ means group. It’s a group you hold close to your heart.” She ducked her head to watch the stones on the path for a moment. When she looked up, she continued. “You could use the same word to refer to your friends, or your village. No one ever used it like that. You might call a friend _kadan_ , but _kadantaam_ is family.”

"A _karataam_ is a group of soldiers and _saarebas_ ,” Bull added, with a pointed look at Ataash.

"If you don’t watch what you say, I will light you on fire, qunari. _Katara. Anaan esaam talan. Tal-Vashoth astaarit, Qunari itwasit_.”

“ _Anaan esaam qun. Kata esaam shokra say qunari_ ," Bull shot back.

"Girls, girls, you’re both pretty," Varric stepped between the two and waved his hands. "I don’t understand a word either of you just said but I know a threat when I hear one."

“ _Parshaara_ , Adaar,” Bull laughed.

Ataash’s eyebrows quirked. “I’m not the one who needled the vashoth with strong opinions, now am I? Don’t _parshaara_ me, qunari.”

Bull laughed again, and Solas and Varric exchanged long-suffering looks.


	31. Blackwall Kisses Ataash And She Makes Ungodly Noises Because She is Very Ticklish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gargalesthesia with Ataash and Blackwall

  
**Gargalesthesia** \- The sensation caused by tickling.

Blackwall brushes his lips along the strip of skin exposed by Ataash’s riding-up shirt - it was supposed to be funny; she would squirm away and curse at him in qunlat and then wrap her octopus limbs around him and mutter at him in broken king’s tongue - and makes sure he wiggles his chin a little to make sure his beard is involved.

He is rewarded with an ungodly shriek - some terrifying, high-pitched squawk that has no right to come out a pair of lungs like hers - and she flails away from him.

She actually falls off the bed, with a thump. He scrambles over after her, and she’s looking up at him, laying on her back, disappointment carved in her face.

"How could you," she asks.

"What?" he asks. He’s really not sure what just happened. "You kiss my stomach, and it all does the-" she sighs angrily and waggles her fingers. "It does the feeling. I don’t like it. And your beard is." She makes the same motion again, and slowly stands up, and tugging the sheets around her shoulders.

"You’re ticklish?" Blackwall asks, trying not to laugh. The Inquisitor barely speaks in large groups, has the most amazing death glare he’s ever seen, supposedly regularly has conversations with the dead - and she’s ticklish. She pulls a face at him.

"Hush," she mutters, and climbs back on the bed. She keeps the blanket burritoed around herself, but wiggles until her back is pressed against Blackwall’s chest. He tries to worm his hands into the blanket, but she rolls so the seam is underneath her. "Get your own blanket," she tells him. He grins and presses his nose against the back of her neck. His beard rubs against the ops of her shoulders, and she tries to wiggle away, but he follows. She extricates one arm from her blanket cocoon and smacks him on the shoulder, and he takes the opportunity to pull the sheet half-off, so he can get one arm around her stomach. She narrows her eyes at him, but lets it go. He pulls the sheet up over her neck a little, and presses his lips in the same place as before.

She sighs and mutters something at him that he doesn’t understand. She wraps one big, warm, calloused hand around his and breathes deeply a few times.

he knows it’ll be hours until she sleeps - two decades of nightmare-induced insomnia will do that to a person, he knows - but they lay there in the dark, breathing in and out in time with each other, trying not to give in to the temptation to tickle her again, now that he knows _exactly_ how strong a response he will get.


	32. Ataash And Shankatara Meet For The First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot of blood and some discussion of binding and gender in this. Just be aware

"Adaar, we have someone for you to meet."

Adaar steps through the doorway to the front office, still holding half her sandwich from lunch.

There’s - Adaar isn’t sure. There is a person sitting in the lobby: tal-vashoth, their horns sheared, huge gashes down their face, not anywhere near healed over but clearly not new either, huge callouses on their shoulders and around their neck from a collar. Their hair is done like a man’s, not even like a saarebas's, but they clearly have breasts. Adaar is very aware of their own set, unbound because today is a day without a job.

"It’s a mage, so it’s yours to take care of." The commander gestures at the tal-vashoth, who flinches. Adaar nods.

"Come with me. Your face will get infected if you do not clean the wounds." Adaar holds out their hand, palm up, and the tal-vashoth takes it warily. Adaar squeezes gently - they remember how easily they spooked for the first few months they were here.

The pair goes upstairs and to the room set aside for, up to this point, just Adaar. Adaar closes the door.

"What’s your name?" Adaar asks.

"I have no name," the tal-vashoth replies.

"I have to call you something,” Adaar laughs. “The people here started calling me Adaar. I didn’t have a name either. You can choose your own name.”

"Call me Asaaranda," the tal-vashoth says, ducking their head.

"Asaaranda," Adaar chuckles. "They’ll cower before us with names like ours." Adaar gestures to the cot in the corner. "Sit there, I’ll go get some things to clean you up. And clothes, you need new clothes."

Adaar leaves the room, and Asaaranda settles on the cot, folding their hands in their lap. The room is sparsely furnished - there’s a small table in the corner and a pile of sticks leanign up against the wall, one half-carved. There’s a knife on the table, next to the candle and the box of matches. The cot doesn’t even have a mattress on it; it’s just a long piece of fabric stretched on a folding frame. There’s a makeshift pillow of an old flour sack full of dried grass - it’s the lowest-effort pillow they’ve ever seen - and a thick wool blanket. it’s not a nice room, but there’s no chair or bed for an arvaraad, and the door apparently locks, and no one else sleeps here.

This is a room for one person.

This is a room for one, free person.

Adaar returns a few minutes later, carrying clean rags and bandages and clothes, and lugging a full bucket of water.

"You won’t be going on jobs, not for a while with wounds like that." Adaar says as they set the bucket on the floor and toss everything else on the cot. Asaaranda watches. Adaar stops and looks them up and down. "Are you called man, or woman, or are you bas like me?”

"Man," Asaaranda says Adaar grunts and smiles and they begin to sort out the rags.

"Your hair," Adaar says. "It was done before you ran?"

Asaaranda shakes his head.

"I did it one night while I fled."

"And how does a saarebas flee the qun?”

"With far too much bloodshed," he replies. Adaar nods.

"You were brave to run. How old are you?" Adaar asks.

"Twenty-three," Asaaranda replies. Adaar laughs and picks up a rag.

""Ah! Only four years older." Adaar dunks the rag in the water. "This will hurt. Hold as still as you can."

"I’ve endured worse," he says, and Adaar grimaces as they begin to wipe his face down. The rag is saturated red very quickly, and what little bits of the wounds Adaar can see is swollen, red, and in places turning an ugly green-white.

"It’s infected," Adaar murmurs. "Even if you keep your face, it’ll be a lot of bad scars."

"Good," he growls, and Adaar raises their eyebrows.

"I’m going to have to open the wounds to let out the pus."

"Ouch," he deadpans. Adaar laughs. They dunk the second cloth and pick up a third.

When Asaaranda’s face is clean, the extent of his injuries is revealed - two long gashes down the right side of his face, eyebrow to lip, and one on the left, cheekbone to nostril. His nose is broken too, skewed heavily to the right, right over the bridge, an old injury he laughs at and prods with his fingers when Adaar points it out.

Adaar grabs their knife and clutches it in their hand, and a well-controlled flame - that Asaaranda has to admit makes him nervous, it’s hard to break twenty-three years of conditioning, even with the last year and a half being unwilling - heats the metal red-hot. Adaar sighs happily and lets the knife cool a little before very carefully opening the wounds again and using the cloth to wipe away the pus. They grimace a little, and Shan-kata tries not to move.

When the wounds are only seeping blood, Adaar packs the them with elfroot and secures bandages over them.

"You’ll do alright, I think," Adaar says with a grin. "You’ll want to bind your chest, but I can help you with that."

"Thank you." Asaaranda reaches up to touch the bandages. "You said you were _bas_?”

"Yeah. You spend nine years in a room as ‘saarebas' you forget what it's like to be a girl. Then you come here, and you must be a man if you fight, but by then it's still easier to just not be either.” Adaaar shrugs. “I'll find you a cot, I'm sure we have an extra one around. I can get one of the other guys to come with us tomorrow, we can pick you up more clothes and armor and things. A blanket probably.” Adaar settles back on their heels. “If you're here, I assume you have weapons training?”

"Until I showed magic I was _ben-hassrath_. Only then was I _saarebas_. Give me a sword and a shield, I’m as good as anyone here.”

"We can get you those too, unless you want to use magic. I wouldn’t mind someone having my back in a fight.

"I don’t know yet." He tells Adaar, who nods. He can’t look them in the eyes. They’re the same color as his _arvaraad _’s, and it brings back uncomfortable memories, even if Adaar is the polar opposite.__

"Fair enough, "Adaar agrees. "Take it easy for the next couple weeks, alright? Until your face heals up."

"If you keep after me like this, I don’t think it’ll be hard," he laughs. Adaar swats him on the shoulder as they stand up.

"I do it because no one looks out for me, so I have to look out for other people. You know what it’s like."

"Of course I do," he agrees. "And I am thankful you are here. I was worried I would get here and no one would understand me."

"I am finding the people here understand less than they think they do." Adaar shrugs. "But I’d like to think I understand you, at least." They smile, and heft the bucket. They toss the bloody rags into it. "if you want to sleep, we don’t eat for a few hours, I can wake you up then. You must be asleep on your feet."

“Ben-hassrath," he replies, and stands. "I trained for endurance. I’ll help."

"Oh no," Adaar replies, and holds up one hand, carefully not touching his chest. "Sit down and sleep. You are not helping me. You are sleeping and letting your face grow back together." Adaar raises one eyebrow and tilts their chin down. Even with only the nubs of horns left, the gesture is clear and familiar.

He sits back down, and Adaar watches him for a moment.

"You have the same eyes as my _arvaraad_ ," he tells them. Adaar loosens when the words leave his mouth.

"I apologize, then. It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable. You need to take care of yourself. Don’t try to say qunari are tough, because I come from the same stock, and I know the limits of every man in these barracks, and especially when they’ve lost a bucketful of blood. Stay sitting, I’ll find something for you to do.”

"Just don’t put your hands on me, you’re different enough from my arvaraad, you don’t need to worry.” He rests his elbows on his knees and smiles.

"Alright. Smack me if I get too similar for comfort. I’ll be back in a little while. Get some sleep." Adaar hoists the bucket and smiles.


	33. Sad Necromancy Things With Ataash And Blackwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now im thinking about that “necromancer inquisitor tries to bring back LI” post  
> and

She sees Blackwall go down, blood pouring from wounds all over his body. His armor is crushed, by the boulder the giant threw at him, and she knows what this is.

She has seen people fall in battle before - watched her friends die when the Veil tore open, watches people fall unconscious from their wounds often enough.

But this?

This is death.

She knows death when she sees it.

_Tamakataran_.

She’s dragged enemy corpses back before, infused them with souls pulled at random from the Fade, dispatched them after because it feels wrong to leave them but-

SHe hopes she can do this.

She closes her eyes and throws herself into the fade, the way Solas showed her and Dorian seems fascinated by.

She knows the soul when she sees it, has felt it often enough next to her in bed, next to her in battle, can feel the taint that winds its way around it. She may not be a gray warden, but she is the inquisitor, is the herald, is the first person to walk bodily into the fade in ages.

She knows his soul, and wraps her thoughts around it and the body laying bleeding out on the ground.

She drags herself out of the Fade, and sees him stand again, unsteady on bloodless feet.

He’s not bleeding anymore.

He’s pale, and there are black veins - the taint, she presumes - spreading their way onto his face and hands.

He turns to look at her, and the eyes in the face are intelligent.

But he’s not bleeding.

He hefts his sword, and turns to face the giant again, and she realizes that this is not life.

She also realizes that she can’t kill him, can’t take the knife to her lover and her best friend.

She can’t let another one die.

Not by her actions.


	34. Ataash Is Unapologetically A Necromancer (Except To Cole She Apologizes To Cole But That Is Not What This Is)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chocochipbiscuit asked: CHiaroscuro with Ataash please!

  
**chiaroscuro** \- light-dark - the strong contrasts between light and shadow

She’s leaning across the table, laughing at a joke Bull has had to translate for her. She tries so damn hard to keep up with the conversations, and she’s picking up the language phenomenally fast, but there are some things she just can’t keep up with.

She can keep up with the children, though, and she’s followed by a herd of them every time she goes out into the yard, all of them yelling at each other in a rapid-fire pidgin of a half dozen languages brought together by the world going to shit.

She keeps up when Cullen points to different places on the map and simplifies his sentences and throws in a few qunlat words. Ataash smiles at him for his efforts.

She keeps up when Josephine gives her a rundown of a report, and even cracks jokes. Ataash looks at Josephine like she’s the most wonderful woman she has ever met.

She keeps up when Cassandra teaches her new words, and smiles and teaches Cassandra words back - more often than not, the dirty ones no one else will tell her. They giggle together into the night.

She keeps up for the most part, cracking jokes and making obscene gestures to get laughs from other people, asking questions when she doesn’t understand. She carves the Hold’s children little wooden animals. Most of them are really only obviously “animals,” with very few features to distinguish them from any other animal. But she tries, and that is the important thing.

***

She’s drenched in blood, the words rolling off her tongue in qunlat as she hauls her staff around and it begins to glow the sick blue-green necromancy always takes on in her presence. The corpses lumber up off the field, bleeding and pale and pissed. her eyes are wide, pupils dilated, and she’s breathing hard. She wipes the blood off her face with the back of one hand - only marginally cleaner than the rest of her - and points to the group of enemies in front of them.

“Katara,” she snarls, and as a wave, the corpses hurl themselves at their adversaries.

The wave of undead sweeps over their enemies, distracting them and turning into sword fodder. Ataash is in among them, and rams her staff all the way through one of them, using it as a shield so the man with a sword in front of it can’t get to her. She hurls a fireball into the back of another one, turning it into a half-living, shambling torch that stumbles into others and lights them on fire. A third becomes a conductor to a blast of electricity.

Their enemies lay scattered and dead soon enough, and Ataash is breathing hard as she cuts off the magic flow from the corpses. They collapse, barely held together with severed muscles and tendons, charred or burning or burned.

The others just stare at her - they know Dorian and Cassandra have been finding information for her and passing it along, but to see - to see this, to see the corpses of your enemies rise and walk against their brethren.

It’s wrong, on some fundamental level none of them can name.

The fact Ataash looks at each of them, narrows her eyes, and then begins going through her enemies’ pockets and stripping them of their weaponry doesn’t help matters. When they’ve been stripped of anything useful, she leaves their defiled corpses sprawled, and leads the group onward.


	35. Shankatara And Ataash Discuss A Tree In A Courtyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> solassians asked: "You have to pee on it" with shan and ataash

"You _have_ to pee on it,” Adaar tells him. They’re wearing their serious face, and Shan doesn’t believe a single word of what they say. “It’s tradition. It’s good luck.”

"I am not peeing on the dying tree in the courtyard," Shan replies, pointing to the tree in question. "I don’t believe in superstitions."

"It’s true, though. Not a superstition. People bury their lives under that tree. When babies are born they bury the blood around its roots so the baby grows up strong. One time a mother didn’t and the baby got sick and died a week later. You always pee on the tree before you go on a job."

"How does it work?" Shan asks, narrowing his eyes at the tree. He’s not a huge fan of the idea of dropping his pants in the courtyard for everyone to see.

"What do you mean?" Adaar asks.

"Why do you pee on the tree instead of spit on it? Or do anything else to it?" he clarifies. Adaar look shim up and down.

"For you, you can spit on the tree." Adaar decides, as if they’re the keeper of the piss-tree and everyone has to obey their orders in regards to it.

"Why can’t I just touch it and wish my bad luck into it?"

"Do you want to touch the tree everyone pees on?" Adaar asks, raising their eyebrows as a smile curls across their lips. Shan cringes.

"Good point," he says.

They approach the tree together, Adaar undoing the ties at their waist, Shan trying to muster up a good mouthful of spit.


	36. Modern AU Ataash Teaches Cole To Drive In Her Shitty Pickup Truck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> solassians asked: mAYBE I CRASHED THE CAR BUT THERE WAS A SQUIRREL IN THE ROAD with cole + inquisitor

"It is alright," Ataash reassures him. The truck is halfway up on the curb, and the boy in the car next to her is breathing hard, his eyes wide. He sounds like he’s about to cry. Ataash puts her hand on his shoulder. "Breathe some. You will feel better. I have done worse things to this truck." Attash lifts her hand, then lets it rest again on his hand on the gearshift.

"What if there are more animals in the road though?” he asks. “I don’t want to do it again!”

"You honk at them and hope they move," Ataash laughs. "If they do not move, I will shoo them off the road for you. You will not hit the squirrels, I promise. Now put her in reverse before the owners of this lovely house notice we are on their lawn, eh?" Ataash chuckles and moves her hand; Cole carefully puts the truck in reverse and drives off the curb. He flinches when the wheels drop back onto the street.

The squirrel in question watches them, its beady eyes challenging Cole to drive a little further forward, see what it will do. Ataash’s hand finds his shoulder and squeezes, and he presses the clutch, shifts into first, and drives forward.

The squirrel, thankfully, scoots.

The rest of the trip is uneventful, although Cole drives very slowly and checks everything four times before turning or speeding up or starting again after a stop sign.

When they get back to the apartment, Ataash tugs him around the front of the truck to point at the huge dent in the front bumper.

"I hit a tree," she stage whispers. She points to the big dent in the center of the hood. "A tree branch fell when I almost hit a different tree." She pulls him around the passenger side and points to the scraped-up hubcaps. "I’ve hit curbs a lot. You did nothing to the truck that I have not also done to the truck." She grins and pats him on the back. "And you didn’t do it because you are a bad driver. You did it because you did not want to hurt a living thing. That is good. You are a good person for that. You only need to be calmer. Most animals are smart enough to get out of the way. You only need to worry about small children. Small children are not always so smart." Ataash taps the side of her head, just above her ear. "Sometimes they run into the street and do not realize you are driving there. We will drive again on Saturday?"

"Yes. I think so." Cole looks at the truck - as rusted, dented, and stained as it is, and as hard as a stickshift is to drive with, he’s starting to like it - and smiles.

"I look forward to it," Ataash tells him, and hugs him. She waves as he turns to walk toward home. She leans against the truck until he turns the corner and disappears from view.


	37. Cassandra Accidentally Breaks Shankatara's Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> soalssians asked: "you broke my foot" shan and cass

"You broke my foot," Shan gasps. He’s sitting on the ground, staring at the foot in question in disbelief. Cassandra squats next to him, staring with the same unbelieving expression.

"I didn’t break your foot,” she snorts. "I couldn’t have.”

"It feels pretty damn broken," he replies. He’s trying to keep the tears from welling up in his eyes because damn it hurts. ”I’ve had my face busted enough to know what a broken bone feels like, kadan, and I’m pretty sure that’s broken.”

"Let’s get you to a healer,” Cass says, and gets her arm under his armpits. She helps him to his feet, and takes most of his weight when he tries to stand on his foot and instead yelps a long string of curses in qunlat, while trying to keep the weight off it. They limp to the infirmary, thankfully (and strategically) close by.

There are only a few others in the open, well-lit room, and he’s very quickly swarmed by a whole posse of healers. They sit him down on a cot, and one of them - a spirit healer, a fact he is very clearly uncomfortable with - gently touches his foot.

"This feels like a break,” she tells him, after running her hand over his foot.

"I knew it," he says. He turns his gaze on Cass, who glares at him. "I said it was a break. You’d think the man with the nose that’s been broken three times would know what a broken bone feels like, hm?"

"Oh, hush," Cass tells him. "It should heal quickly, right?" she asks the healer.

"Left alone? It would be a month or two with his foot immobilized. With all the walking you do, it would be longer, most likely. If we heal it here, now, with magic, it will be five minutes, maybe ten. Breaks are straightforward."

He grimaces and takes a deep breath.

"Then use magic."

"Are you sure?" the healer asks. She can see in his face that he’s not impressed.

"Yes. Just get it done."

He grits his teeth as bone knits back together and Cass watches, arms crossed over her chest and worry in her eyes.

He limps away - most of it is in his head; the healer did a good job, but it’s hard to think of the fact your foot isn’t broken when you’ve spent most of your life having to heal from injuries at the normal speed - and back to his quarters. He’s not excited about the stairs, but he has to admit, he’d rather do it on a magically-healed foot than on a broken one. Cassandra snuggles into the blankets next to him that night, her arms around his middle.

"I’m sorry I broke your foot," she tells him.

"It’s forgotten," he tells her, and rolls in her arms to kiss her forehead. "Just don’t do it again."

"I’ll try," she chuckles, and kisses the tip of his nose.


	38. Modern AU Mage Underground Featuring Ataash and Friend's F!Lavellan (Who Has, Once Again, Appeared)

The truck that pulls up the driveway is not what Moran expected - for one it’s loud, for second it’s rusty and the bumper is held on with bailing wire, and third, there is a qunari with her horns shorn driving it, wearing a floral-patterned crop-top and daisy dukes.

However, the qunari is big and smiley, and shows Moran the tattoo on her shoulder her contact was assured to have. Moran leads her out to the barn ,where the halla, Budd, stands in a stall and watches them.

Under the bales of hay in the corner, there’s a trap door, and Moran hauls it open. The qunair leans down with a flashlight, keeping it pointed at the dusty, straw-covered floor of the secret compartment to avoid blinding anyone.

"I am your ride into town," she tells anyone in the crawlspace. Only one person peers out of the corners, and the qunari holds down her arm to offer him a hand up. The mage is scrawny and starved, and he looks at her horns with distrust. The qunari doesn’t demand anything out of him, just laughs and pats him on the shoulder, leading him out to her truck. She waves him into the cab, and then climbs in herself. She leans out the window to speak to Moran.

"You do good work," she says, and nods. "Thank you."

"You’re new," Moran tells her.

"Not new," the qunari laughs. "I was a contact somewhere else. You run on the underground, you find your way back to the underground." The qunari salutes, and her truck roars to life, startling the boy on the seat next to her. the qunari laughs, and turns around in the driveway in the most beautiful three-point turn Moran has ever seen from such an unwieldy vehicle. Moran watches her go.


	39. Ataash Feels Like Preserving Elven Culture Is Important And Says As Much

"Why are you so insistent on helping the Dalish find these runes?" Cassandra asks. They’ve just gotten out of another fight with three rage demons and four terrors, all of them are covered in blood, and Ataash looks like she wants to sleep for days.

Ataash turns.

Usually it’s easy to forget how huge she is - between the way she hunches and her big smiles and her broad, friendly face, she is not the qunari terror the rumors paint her as. Her brows are drawn down and she is scowling.

" Lady Seeker," she says, voice low and sugary sweet. "Perhaps you had not noticed, but I am Vashoth. not Tal-vashoth, an exile from the Qun. Born outside it, to a woman who did not regret leaving and so distanced herself from it as much as she could. Maybe you didn’t know that I have no history. There are no folktales of who the qunari come from. They were called the kossith, but if you ask the Bull about them, you will learn nothing. i have no past. Nothing to remember. There is no one to teach me, nowhere to learn. If I can give something - anything - to the Dalish, then maybe I can hope for my own people."

Ataash turns and walks away, jaw set.

Later, at camp, without prompting, Ataash turns again to Cassandra.

"You have so many human heroes. There are elvhen heroes. The dwarves have heroes from among their ranks. But when have you met a qunari hero? When have you met a vashoth hero? I am the first one here, and I have no one to look to. All I have is dreams of the dead and a desperate hope that i can do right by more people than I do wrong by."

Ataash sighs and stares at her hand.

"There was Sten, who travelled with the Hero of Ferelden," Cassandra offers.

"He’s the Arishok. He’s not like me. When are qunari mages ever heroes? No matter where I go - the qun, the andrastian states, tevinter - I’m chained, leashed, locked away because I’m dangerous. There is nothing for me to claim as mine. You have an institution, and people, and a history. Not all of us do."

She sighs then, and gets up to wander around the outskirts of their camp the way she always does at night.


	40. Ataash and Shankatara Discuss Things Late At Night

Asaaranda can hear the warriors snoring in the main room, and the other mages breathing on their cots in their separate room. He’s sitting on the floor of the mages’ room, and Adaar sits across from him, his gashed leg in their lap. Their fingers are gentle on his skin, and they hum to themselves while they wrap the bandages around the wound.

"Why do you do this?" he asks, when he’s sure no one else will hear them. They’re the only two fluent in qunlat here right now - Adaar’s brother is out on the town with some of the others, and he would already be asleep if he was back - and like they always do when it’s just the two of them, they speak it exclusively.

"Do what?" Adaar asks, tying the bandages off .They don’t move his leg off their lap, just lean forward a little to place their hands on the floor and hunch their shoulders. The smile playing on their lips is a familiar one.

"You help," Asaaranda replies, gesturing to his leg. "Everyone, but especially the - the mages." That’s the one place he doesn’t use qunlat - he can’t bring himself to say the word saarebas, not after the karataam came after them months ago and it was four other “saarebas” who saved his ass. “Why?” he asks again. “It’s not like you expect anything in return and it’s not like you have to, so why?”

Adaar looks at him like he’s sprouted another pair of arms.

"Because I’m in charge of you and the other mages. It’s my job to keep you whole and safe." Adaar sits back on their hands, brows knitted, but smiling. "I have a job. And I like you all. I don’t want you dead. I like you in particular." They run their fingertips down the bottom of his foot, and he jerks away, scowling. He’s not as ticklish as Adaar, but he still doesn’t appreciate it. Adaar just grins at him toothily.

"But you don’t have to do this. You just lead us in fight. You act like one of us off the battlefield and it’s-" He doesn’t have words for what it is, in any language. He stops there, expects Adaar to put the last pieces together, the way they always can. Adaar watches him. When he makes a frustrated grunt instead of more words, Adaar beams at him and leans forward to touch his jaw the way they always do. He leans into the touch the way he, in turn, always does.

"Because you are my people,” Adaar says. “You are my responsibility, and I love all of you. If one of you dies, if one of you is hurt, that’s on me. I don’t let that happen to my people.” They lean forward a little further and touch the other side of his jaw with their other hand. Usually the movement would be followed by a kiss, but Adaar is just a little too far away to actually manage. “All of you seem to think you’re indestructible, and really you’re all tiny fragile mages. Someone with bulk on them has to patch you up when the fighting’s over.” Adaar laughs and moves his leg off their lap so they can kiss him without injury to either party.

Adaar scoops him up off the floor; he makes an indignant, muffled squawk but holds onto their neck. Adaar laughs and presses kisses to his forehead, his nose, his cheek, his chin. They drop him the last inch onto the mattress, then crawls under the blanket. They wrap their arms around him - the way they always do - and he lets himself relax. Adaar will be on their own mattress by morning - something, muttered a year ago when another mage moved into the room, about favoritism and an image to at least pretend to uphold, the only time he’s ever seen them blush at anything - but for now?

For now there are strong, soft arms around him and half-audible qunlat poems whispered in his ear.


	41. Ataash And SHankatara Are Sappy And I Love Them

The blankets smell like them.

They smell like sweat and ashes and magic, and the blankets smell like the same.

He has to resist pulling them up to bury his nose in them.

It’s such a personable smell - real and heavy and solid, to combat the nightmares and the fear and the late-night, half-awake ramblings his mind takes - and he can’t get enough of it.

They let him touch them whenever he feels like it, and they lean into the touch like they don’t even have to think about it. He’s taken to rubbing their scalp, which gets a delightful purr and a smile that could melt the snow off the Frostbacks.

They’ve been out on a mission for three days now, along with a good number of the warriors and rogues - Kaariss thankfully went with them, because he seems to have latched onto Asaaranda as his target if Adaar isn’t around - and he misses them. Horribly. Gut-wrenchingly. He’s gone over every situation that could possibly have arisen, and he knows they’re due back late tonight sometime.

But he’s watching the moon and stars roll across the sky, trying to remember when midnight is, where the moon is, how far away that is.

Adaar startles him when they open the door with a soft creak. The hinges need oiled, but Adaar keeps putting it off. He suspects it’s so they know when the other comes and goes.

"Asaaranda?" they whisper, and he rolls over and sprawls his arms out. "Good," they murmur, and close the door. They don’t lock it - no one’s up and they don’t, in theory, need that much privacy if all they’re going to do is sleep - and they begin to strip, hanging armor on its hooks and throwing shirt and pants onto the rickety chair in the corner, and binder on top of that, and then smalls. They slide under the blanket, naked as the day they were born, and snuggle up to Asaaranda’s side.

"How was it?’ Asaaranda asks.

"Long. Tired of bedrolls. Just want another warm body near me." Adaar nuzzles his neck, and he laughs as it tickles. Adaar wraps one arm over his stomach and one leg over his, and then lays still.

"I’m happy to oblige," he murmurs.

"Also a little horny," Adaar admits. "To much blood and not enough fighting."

Asaaranda laughs again - he can see the glint in their eye even in the dark - and he turns his head to press a kiss to their temple, then to their ear, then their jaw. Then Adaar rolls them over, so they’re on their back and Asaaranda is kneeling between their legs, his arms at their sides.

"I can help with that," he says, and leans down to kiss Adaar again.


	42. Ataash Offers Cole A Place Away From People If He Needs It

"I found a place," she says. She’s leaning against the wall next to him, speaking qunlat. After they both realized he could understand it, she slips into it more often, the way she does around The Iron Bull and Dorian and around all the people in her painful memories she tries very hard to keep buried under her facade of smiles and laughter and badly-executed jokes. If he brings them up to her, she shuts down, and as much as he wants to help, she won’t let him. “For if you need away from people. I set up a cot too.”

"Thank you," he says. He wants to reciprocate, to give back, to do something to let her keep something as more and more is taken away. This is all he can do; accept her kindness, and do small things. She asks to remember the times he comforts her, and so she does. He sees her turning the knot of wood he found, washed up on the storm coast and gave to her, in her fingers - the same way he does with another piece he found somewhere else.

"It’s no trouble," she says, grinning. "I go down there sometimes and practice writing and reading. Sometimes I sleep down there."She shrugs. "You are always welcome."

Even without the memories that boil to the surface, he can see her discomfort in her smile. He has learned not to say anything, that she already knows he can see it, and does not want it acknowledged unless concrete conditions - not just emotions - can be effected.

"It’s down past the kitchen, at the end of that room. Its just a little library alcove. But it’s far away from people, if it ever gets to be too much." Ataash shrugs then, smiles, and trots back down the stairs.

He visits it late that night, once he’s sure it’s going to be empty.

The room smells like her - like sweat and campfires and bitter vitaar and overcooked meat and the constant pungent tang of the fade, from her hand, from her dreams, from her magic, from the three skulls perched on a top shelf, staring at each other with glittering bloodstone eyes - and he spends a long time sitting on the cot, his legs folded, flipping through her open notebook. She had told him weeks ago that if it was open, he was welcome to look if he wanted - but not to open personal books without a seriously good cause.

This notebook is full of pencil and chalk and charcoal scratchings, and it takes him a while to understand what it is. There are little poems with bad illustrations - worse than Sera’s - scratched in the margins, rudimentary music notation above, around, underneath, anywhere-it-fits-in the text. He hums a few of them to himself, and does until he sees her the next morning. he hums one to her, and she pats him on the back, grinning.

"Thank you," she says, and there is nothing for her to hide.


	43. (MIld NSFW) Ataash And Blackwall Don't Kiss Because Vitaar Is Toxic And Ataash Does Not Want Him Dead

He moves in to kiss her, and she stops him just before skin touches skin.

"Not my face," she apologizes. "I am not wearing vitaar now, but only washed my face this morning. I do not want you to get sick."

"Sick?" he asks.

"Vitaar is not good for people who are not qunari. It will make you very sick. I watched a child die from it once. He tried to steal our supplies and put them on like he had seen us because he saw it made us stronger, but he went stiff and drooly and did not make it through the night.” Ataash shrugs and grimaces. “I do not want you stiff and drooly.”

"I would imagine," Blackwall says.

"But you can kiss anywhere else. Just not my face." She grins then, and he takes that as his invitation to kiss her.

He kisses her neck, and she hums as he backs her against the railing above the stairs, his hands on her hips, her hands on his shoulders.

He kisses her throat, her collarbones, the bottom of her chin, her palms and the backs of her hands, her shoulders, her stomach, her breasts - he kisses everything but her face.

And the _noises_ she makes in response.


	44. Ataash And Vivienne Discuss Things After Viv's Companion Quest

They are five hours out of Val Royeaux in the carriage Vivienne arranged. Ataash has disposed of her boots - ugly, heavy, Fereldan things that have come through mires and fens and rivers and two high dragon fights without a scratch or a broken sole, at the cost of being shit-brown-stained-black-in-places and incredible, horribly loud - and her outer coat, and his curled against the wall in her corner of the carriage, feet up on the seat and eyes closed. She has scrubbed the vitaar off her face - the only concession she was willing to make to the ever-common Orlesian mask - at the first chance she got, and now she looks - empty, perhaps.

This hurts, of course - but it’s an opportunity as well.

The Inquisitor seems to be taking it worse, in a strange twist of circumstances. The woman can distance herself from everything but the death of someone else’s patron. The more time Vivienne spends watching her, in battle and outside, the more she realizes that the Inquisitor knowingly wears masks, even with her bare face.

She is not wearing a mask now.

She knows this for certain when Ataash speaks.

"His name was Shankatara. Or Asaaranda. Or-"

Her voice breaks, to high and too soft.

The qunari is crying, but she takes a deep breath and settles her feet on the floor. She squares her shoulders, puts them back, even as she leans her elbows on her thighs.

"He had a qunari name too, but he didn’t talk about it." She raises red-brown eyes to meet VIvienne’s. "He died in the conclave. I left him alone a few minutes before the explosion. I - I asked him to come along. I didn’t want to be alone and surrounded by so many _bas_.”

"You must not blame yourself, my dear."

"I don’t. Not anymore. I just - I miss him. I wish he was here. The two of you would have gotten along very well." She laughs then, a soft thing. It’s a different animal from her usual loud guffaws. "I shouldn’t have brought him up. I’m sorry."

"Do not apologize for feeling, Inquisitor. You wear your mask well. I misjudged you when we first met."

"You keep saying that, I’m wondering what you thought I was." Ataash’s laugh is closer now to what Vivienne expects - low and throaty, almost raw. A sly smile creeps across her lips, and she looks a decade younger. "You thought I was a big, dumb, violent oxman with a veneer of refinement because of training by my advisors, didn’t you?"

"I admit, I did not have a very high opinion of you when we first met. You have proved yourself to have outdone everyone’s expectations time and time again, however."

"Thank you, Madame." Ataash nods, and it turns into ducking her head as she laughs again, in embarrassment. "I am glad to have exceeded someone’s expectations. Perhaps I am not fumbling as much as I thought I was."


	45. Bin-Ysrit And Ataash Talk About Things Because Ataash Is Dead In This AU And BIn Doesn't Take It Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring toomanyducttapetoomanyrope's bin-ysrit adaar, in her game's universe, where ataash died at the conclave  
> warnings for mentions of self-harm

"Hey, _kadan_ ,” she laughs, and he looks away.

"You’re dead," he snaps. "I don’t want dreams about you too."

"Look, little brother." Ataash - or rather, this dream image of her - does the thing she always did in life, where she rolls onto her back and stares at him upside down, ankles crossed and fingers folded together - except she’s floating in midair. "I am dead. Amazing piece of observation there. But you know what this is?" she asks, throwing out her arms. "This is the Fade. I still exist here, and I’m not moving on until we get some shit sorted out, alright?"

She drops back to the ground and walks over to him. She hauls him to his feet - he’s smaller than her, always has been, suspects he always will be - and stretches out his arm. "Everyone in the fade can feel you," she says softly. "You’re echoing through the whole thing. I’m not around to whack you in the back of the head, so you need to take care of yourself, alright? It’s easier to manifest outside the Fade with all the tears in the veil, but it’s still not easy. I can’t be there to make sure you take care of yourself, alright? If I find out you haven’t been, I’ll sic Shokrakar on you, get it?" Ataash laughs and presses a kiss to Bin’s forehead. "Or maybe I’ll show up in the qunari’s dreams and get him to watch out for you. I know he likes marking you up, but the lightning burns aren’t from him, I don’t think." Her voice is low and soft, her eyes wide and tired. "You need to take care of yourself so I don’t have to possess someone to pester you about it."

"You wouldn’t possess someone," he snorts. Even if this isn’t his sister - seems unlikely that she isn’t, with the way she talks and manhandles him - it’s a pretty convincing copy.

"Oh I wouldn’t?" she says, and pulls him under her arm to give him a noogie. "You are wrong,” she says, and tackles him to the ground. He tries to throw her off with a squawk, and they’re wrestling and cursing each other out in moments, as she grabs him by the horns and pins him with her greater weight. “Might be dead,” she murmurs with a laugh. “But that doesn’t mean you can hurt yourself because you’re angry and sad and you miss me and don’t have me around to pull you back from the edge.” She lets him up, folds her legs and sits next to him, hands on her ankles. “Please,” she says. “Find someone to listen to you speak. Find someone to lean on. I’ll try to visit, but it’s hard to be a ghost outside the Fade.” "Aren’t you supposed to move on and not bother people?" Bin asks, laughing. "Isn’t that what the Andrastians say about souls?"

"We’re not Andrastian, are we?" Ataash asks and smacks him on the shoulder, smiling. "Don’t see why I should follow their rules. You should do everything you can to piss them off, including consorting with spirits." Ataash winks and hit him in the shoulder gain, laughing loud and deep from in her chest. "Keep them on their toes. Remind them we are important and that we should be listened to. You are the Inquisitor. Make sure they remember. Also, kiss the qunari. He likes you more than he will say he does." She grins, and he lunges for her as she laughs and scrambles away.

They talk for a while more, before she tells him he needs to wake up and go back to work. She kisses his forehead again and hugs him.

She smells like herself, and it makes him want to cry.


	46. Ataash Ropes Blackwall Into Wearing An Ugly Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE UGLY SWEATER THING FOR ATAASH AND BLACKWALL

"These sweaters are terrible,” Ataash cackles. She plucks at one of the loose threads on hers, careful not to unravel it.

"Are you sure we weren’t s’posed to dress nicer for this?" Blackwall asks.

"It did not say to dress nicely on the invitation," Ataash points out. "If they wanted us in nice clothing, the invitation would have said to wear nice clothing."

"I’m not sure this is a, _herm_. Ugly sweater party.” He looks worried, and Ataash replies with a huge smile. 

"It is an ugly sweater party now," she says, and tugs him out the door.

——

They are the only ones in ugly sweaters. There are a few in button-ups and jeans, but no one is wearing anything that even vaguely resembles the horrors that is are their pair of ugly sweaters, one teal and white with leaping halla knit into it, the other made in red and green zig-zags and speckled with LED lights. Blackwall is very glad he looks good in teal, although he’s also impressed by how fantastic Ataash manages to make her light-up monstrosity look, even surrounded by much less imposing women in cocktail dresses.

Ataash does not seem to care that no one else is wearing sweaters.

He considers the merits of “losing” his somewhere as soon as possible, then considers the merits of keeping it on so that Ataash can parade the both of them around later to show off their horrible outfit choices, when she will undoubtedly be a little tipsy and probably do that thing where she leans in close to his ear and speaks very low and very breathy and has that one smile that—

He opts to stay in the sweater, even if it gets him a couple dirty looks.


	47. Solas, Blackwall, And Cole Accompany Ataash To The Western Approach

Solas and Blackwall are both bright red by the time they settle into the mouth if the cave to get out of the wind for the night. Cole has progressively shed layers all day, although he still wears his hat and his long-sleeved shirt. He and Ataash are the only ones doing alright by the end of the day - Ataash’s hasn’t even been wearing hats, but she’s dark enough she doesn’t burn , no matter how little protective clothing she wears.

Solas and Blackwall though?

They’re groaning and trying not to touch their itchy, overwarm, sunburned faces. Ataash watches them with pity.

"We had many people who got sunburns in our village. I know how to heal them faster and how to stop them getting worse. I can gather the things?"

"Would you?" Blackwall asks.

"It would be greatly appreciated," Solas agrees.

"Cole, do you want to come along?" Ataash asks, standing up an dusting the sand off the back of her pants. "I am sure they can handle themselves back here at camp for a little while."

"I would like that," Cole agrees. Ataash nods and pulls on her unarmored coat. The air and sand are cooling rapidly, now that the sun has sunk behind the Gamoran Peaks.

"We need elfroot and some spindleweed is all. We should be back soon." Ataash slings her staff over her shoulder, though, as if she’s preparing for something to go wrong. "If it’s been more than two hours and we still aren’t back, come looking for us. We’re headed to that gully we found earlier. I thought I saw a patch of elfroot further back and some spindleweed on the shore."

"We’ll be here," Blackwall replies. He’s refilling canteens from the trickle of water from the crack in the rock, while Solas gets a fire started. Ataash nods, and heads toward the mouth of their canyon.

++++

One hyena comes after them while they’re out, but Ataash has it frozen and shattered before it can even get close. She isn’t frustrated, just efficient - and it’ a good change of pace. She gives off emotion in waves, stronger than almost anyone else around the hold. Cole suspects she knows, and uses it to mask the deep hurt he can feels sometimes. He tried to untangle it once, but she set her jaw and walked away without a word. She talked about it once, later, gave it names and a history. The knot had loosened, but there was no way to untangle it; she knew by now that this was not something she was at fault for, but that didn’t stop the pain no matter how he tried to reassure her.

The canyon is cool and empty, after they had cleared it of varghest and quillbacks earlier in the day. Ataash hums to herself, directs him toward the patch of elfroot further down the canyon as she wades through the knee-deep-on-humans water looking for spindleweed.

He comes back with the elfroot before she’s found enough spindleweed, so she directs him to go looking for that too.

When they’ve gathered enough - she’s still humming, the way she tends to when she’s not thinking too hard about anything - they head back to the camp with their small bundles of herbs.

Solas and Blackwall have a pot over the fire, boiling what appears to be the beginnings of soup. Ataash sheds her coat and staff and tosses them onto her bedroll, Cole settles next to her as she begins to sort the herbs out onto the ground.

"I should make you sunscreen for tomorrow," she says, taking a break from her humming an squinting at Solas, who looks somewhere between insulted and relieved. "I would need other things, but I can get them tomorrow before the sun is bad."

"Please, leave the deathroot alone. Might not kill you, but it’ll kill us," Blackwall grunts. He’s the one manning the pot, while Solas inspects everyone’s armor and clothing for tears and patches them. Ataash laughs.

"I will leave the deathroot where it grows," she promises, pressing her hand to her heart. "Besides, vitaar is not good sunscreen. It is some mashed up roots from water plants that I will find easier when there is sun." She’s still grinning.

When all the spindleweed and elfroot is sorted out, she sorts it into smaller piles that she begins to shred with her fingers. She nods to Cole when he looks between her and the pile, and he joins in too.

When all the piles have been uniformly reduced to shreds, Ataash reaches for a bowl and a fist-sized rock along the shore, and begins to grind them down to mush. She adds some water to help the process of turning them into paste, but still sits there grinding the single small bowl until Blackwall has started ladling soup out into other bowls. Ataash walks around the fire and leans next to him, eating out of his bowl instead of clearing her own. She gives him a wide grin and wraps one arm around his waist. He doesn’t protest, just rolls his eyes.

When they’ve eaten their fill - three people is a lot of soup each - Ataash returns to her herbs, and continues crushing. When the herbs have been reduced to a paste, she stick the bowl in the coals at the edge of the fire and waits for it to cook down. She prods it occasionally with her spoon.

When she deems is acceptable, she passes the bowl to Solas, who nods for her to set it in the sand. He’s not going to try to hold it in his hands; the qunari can keep their ridiculously durable skin to themselves. He lets it cool a little more, while she tucks her knees up and watches him sew a few more slashes shut. Ataash’s armor is more hole, patch, and stitch than it is unmarred cloth. When he’s finished the night’s repairs, he sets it aside and picks up the bowl.

"You put it where it itches," Ataash instructs. "You do not need very much. It helps with blisters too."

"Thank you," Solas says, and scoops up the goop with his fingers. "Perhaps you should prepare another batch for our bearded friend?"

"I am," Ataash says, and reaches for a newly-cleaned bowl to prepare more.

++++

They look ridiculous, their faces smeared with sunscreen in vaguely-vitaar-ish patterns. Their entire faces - all three of them - are covered, and any bit of skin - Solas’s feet, Cole’s hands, the gaps at Blackwall’s wrists - are also covered with a thin white film. Ataash looks proudly on her handiwork. All three men look varying levels of intrigued, confused and uncomfortable - Blackwall most uncomfortable, Cole most confused, Solas most intrigued.

"You will not burn today," she tells them, grinning and readying her staff on her back.

She yells it again as the dragon soars overhead and the three of them let out a groan as one.


	48. Further Ataash/Blackwall Ugly Sweater Things

She dips him.

_Dips him._

A cheer goes up from the assembled party, as his fingers scrabble at her shoulders, finally managing to curl into the thick yarn of her ugly sweater. She's laughing against his mouth as she slips him tongue, and he presses back with his. He focuses on her eyes - she sprung this on him, was he supposed to know he was supposed to close his eyes? - and she has hers open too, crinkled nearly shut from her smile. Hoots go up from the party as he curls one hand up her neck, behind one ear. She flicks her ears at him, and the gathered people hoot and cheer again.

She finally pulls away and returns him to his feet. She presses a kiss to his forehead, her hands carding down through his hair.

" _Kadan_ ," she murmurs close to his forehead, so quiet even he can barely hear it. " _Taarsidath halsaam_ ," she murmurs, and her lips quirk, and if he knows nothing else, he knows what that means.

"Oh, you will?" he chuckles."Not if I do it first."

"Don't need you," Ataash laughs. " _Halsaam_. Just me." She tucks her hands behind his neck and leans in for another quick peck on the lips. "We should move so they can make others kiss here."

"You are too accommodating, my lady," Blackwall laughs, and they step out of the doorway, Ataash bowing and sweeping an arm toward it, waggling her eyebrows at the gathered party, encouraging someone - anyone! - to come take the plunge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Taarsidath halsaam" - "I'll masturbate to this later"


	49. Ataash Cuddles Blackwall And Tells Him He Has Worth, Because I Am A Sap And At This Point I Have To Write The Stuff I Want To Read

"You think you are a terrible person," Ataash murmurs. She’s wrapped around Blackwall, who has, unwillingly, been made the little spoon, _again_. “And you let it turn you into a good person.” She kisses the back of his neck, blowing his hair out of her mouth when she pulls away, and she laughs. He can feel it rattling through her chest and into his back, and it’s hard not to smile, even with the sick feeling in his gut. She doesn’t mention his past - and he never had to ask her not to - but every time it comes up when she’s in earshot - and even when she’s not - it makes him nauseous, anxious; reminds him too much that she continues to choose to stay despite all his flaws laid bare and every lie exposed. “You tried to be the person everyone thought you were,” and here she laughs, soft and low and as close as he’s ever heard to _adoring_ , “and you turned into him.” She kisses his shoulder and squeezes him with the arm that isn’t pinned awkwardly between them. “That is a better thing to be able to do than many can do.”

He’s also learned at this point that there’s no reason to argue when she gets like this; it just leads to her rolling him over and kissing him to shut him up. He teases her about having a complex, sometimes. She teases him right back, dropping in and out of qunlat. He’s starting to learn what she says - “ _Kadan_ " " _halsaam_ " " _taarsidath-an_ " " _katoh_ " " _kadantaam_ " - and it makes his heart melt. He teaches her Orlesian in turn, and they laugh over the way she stumbles over the words - for someone who was born and grew up in Orlais, she really is terrible at the language. She attributes it to spending seventeen years on the far side f the Tirashan, in the Hunterhorns. He tries to point out nine years in mercenary companies, and she replies with “bilingual little brother.” She laughs, mumbles something at him in some unholy pidgin of three different languages, and kisses his neck, below his ear and just at the edge of his beard.


	50. Ataash And Shankatara (Under Different Names) Navigate A Fledgling Relationship

Adaar's brother came back hours ago, and is already fast asleep on his cot on the other side of the room, rolled to face the wall. Asaaranda has his thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders, flopped on his own cot. Adaar's cot is still empty, their blanket and makeshift pillow undisturbed.

All of the mages - Adaar, Adaar's brother ,and Asaaranda - were all on the job today, and all of them were exhausted. Adaar had kissed Asaaranda on the way back, while their brother went on ahead. They had ducked into one of the many alcoves made specifically for this purpose, and it had proceeded to be all tongues and teeth and carefully placed hands and obscene noises. They had gotten a dirty look from someone who could afford to wear a mask, and a city guard had come along shortly after, to shoo the oxmen away, once they showed they were with a legitimate company and not trespassers in the district.

Asaaranda had gone back to their quarters to collapse and doze off, periodically startled awake by a thump from somewhere in the rickety building. Adaar's brother had come back an hour later, happy and glowing the way he always was when Adaar joked about " _kas marass-lok_."

Adaar hadn't come back yet, though, and he suspected they were out in the main room with someone else - probably Kaariss or Katoh - all teeth and tongues and hands and breasts and wet, warm flesh against wet, warm flesh and-

He makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a whine and rolls over so his back is to the door.

Adaar is not his _only_ friend here, but they are his best friend. 

He's started to doze off for the sixth time when he hears the door squeak open, and the sound of someone stripping and tossing their clothes into a pile. He half-sits and grunts, and the bulky shape by the door chuckles and grunts back. He grins, and flops back down onto the cot. He can hear Adaar chuckle from across the room, and when they slide under the blanket - naked, as always, because Adaar sees no reason to be dressed if all they're going to be doing is sleeping - they wrap their arms and legs around him, burying their nose in his collarbone.

"Who was it tonight?" Asaaranda asks. He's not brave enough to go out there and pick someone from among the ranks, still too nervous in his own skin, so he lives vicariously through Adaar, who frequents others' beds. He wishes he could come onto them strong enough to keep them here, in his. He knows they've caught him checking them out several times, and really at this point, there just hasn't been any touching. They sleep together, they've kissed, once he even had his hands down the back of Adaar's pants and was about to squeeze before Adaar's brother walked in on them (and then wouldn't let them live it down for weeks).

"Katoh," Adaar sighs, and nuzzles a little closer, pressing lips to chest and curling fingers into arm muscles. "Good to touch another body."

This is his chance. He knows this. He has maybe ten minutes before Adaar falls asleep, and he loses his nerve and his chance.

"If you wanted-" he starts, and his throat seizes up. His face is burning. Adaar extricates themselves from him, looks down at him. He can see their smile, even in the dark, by the faint moonlight coming through the window.

"If I wanted what?" Adaar asks, voice low and teasing. They're gentle, though - it's the good sort of teasing, the one they default to when they kiss him or touch his hips or pull him away from the wall to come dance.

"If you wanted to come back to me instead of-" He swallows, takes a deep breath. He can do this. He knows the words, he can make the words happen, dammit! "Instead of going to one of the others."

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," Adaar replies, lowering themselves. He can see their brows furrow, and he reaches up to touch their cheek.

"I'm not - I'm not any more uncomfortable than you are." He sits up, and Adaar sits up with him. "I - I want to, uh." He ducks his head then, not sure if he actually has these words. Adaar waits patiently, eyebrows quirked, listening raptly. "I want to have my head between your legs," he finally mutters quickly. He's pretty sure he's glowing, he's blushing so bad. He can't even look at Adaar, not until there are gentle fingers on his jaw tugging, his face up.

Adaar is grinning.

"Kadan," they whisper, and lean forward. They still taste like Katoh, just a little, and Asaaranda's hands come up to cradle their face and pull them closer.

They bear him down onto the cot, which creaks protestingly under the weight of both of them moving around each other.

"Not tonight," Adaar says. "But I'll take you up on your offer another day. What do you want in return? You don't get to do this for free."

"I don't-" He giggles nervously. He hadn't thought this far ahead. Of course Adaar would want to reciprocate somehow, even though they knew about what he didn't like.

"If it's something like carrying you over deep puddles, I can do that. I know you don’t want sex right now. That's okay." Adaar nuzzles his cheek, just in front of his ear, and he sighs and leans into the touch. "Anything you want." They press their cheek to his, and they're warm and soft. Their hands are on his shoulders, their legs touching his, and he feels grounded, _safe_.

"Just - just stay here and hold me," he murmurs. "That's all I need for right now."

Adaar laughs, low and soft and wet against his ear.

"I can do that," they agree, and ease back down onto the cot, their arms and legs wrapping around him.


	51. Ataash And Shankatara Pre-Game, Feat. A Discussion Of Pronouns

Adaar is _jittering_.

Adaar, of all people, does not _jitter_. Adaar is rock solid. Adaar has carried children out of burning building without flinching, Adaar has suplexed warriors when they tried to win fights with them, Adaar has faced down templars with the sort of aplomb that only comes from years of practice or an assurance of a huge power difference in their favor. Adaar is the one person in Valo-kas that can be relied on to throw themselves in front of any danger to protect the others. Adaar does not _jitter_.

Adaaar asked him out on a walk at lunch, and now dusk is falling. They hopped a fence just outside of town, wading through a wheat field toward the edges of the woods. Now they’re in a clearing in the woods, where Adaar is cutting elfroot even though the company doesn’t need any - if they need anything, it’s rashvine, and the woods this far north don’t grow it - and Asaaranda sits back on a rotting log and watches them. Even though the woods are dark, Adaar seems too nervous for someone who walked, safe, out of the Tirashan with their twelve year old brother in tow.

"What did you want to talk about?" Asaaranda asks.

"Just wanted to go on a walk," Adaar says, evading.

"You’re nervous," Asaaranda says. "You want to talk?"

"Fucking ben-hassrath," Adaar laughs. "Yeah I-" They stop, sigh, and sit back on the balls of their feet. Their shoulders are hunched, and even from behind, Asaaranda knows their body language well enough to know their eyes are closed, their brows drawn together, their hands (hidden behind their body) clenching and unclenching. They stay that way - both of them - for a long few seconds, then Adaar stands and turns around. "You’re a man," they say, setting their jaw and squaring their shoulders. Asaaranda watches. He raises his eyebrows.

"Yes," he agrees. Adaar is stiff, powerful, _saarebas_ and _tamakataran_ and _arikatagena_. "I-" Adaar takes a deep breath. "I let them call me ‘it’ and I believed them." They lift their right hand, the one they hardly ever use, and study the back and the front, covered in scratches and calluses. Asaaranda waits for the words he can see caught in Adaar’s throat. "And I don’t - they were wrong."

"What do you want to be called?" Asaaranda asks. He hadn’t suspected this turn of events, but - he remembers the way Adaar had asked him when they met the first time.

"When I was - was really little, before I ever even had a nightmare, they - they called me ‘she’. I want to try it again. I’m not sure it fits but," Adaar laughs, and they sound _scared_. Asaaranda stands and takes a hesitant step toward them, not sure if touch is what Adaar wants or needs right now. Adaar looks at him, eyelids low and nervous smile on her lips, her shoulders hunched up. Just seeign him stand makes something loosen in her chest, her arms hand a little looser, her ears not quite so tight to her skull. “But I think ‘she’ fits better than ‘it’ ever did.” She smiles for real then, puts her shoulders back and stands like she’s given an ultimatum. Asaaranda grins in return.

"Then, my lady," he says, and bows. "Let me be the first to tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I know."

"Flatterer. Don’t hurt yourself," Adaar laughs. She tugs him upright and presses a kiss to the tip of his nose. "But thank you. It means a lot."

"You did the same thing for me before you fell madly in love with me, so," he teases. He stands on tiptoes to press a quick kiss to Adaar’s lips, chuckling. "I’ll call you what you want to be called, no matter if it changes or not."

"Thank you, _kadan_ ,” Adaar says again, and she leans down to kiss him, still smiling.


	52. Shankatara And Bull Discuss Things Because I Had Words I Wanted To Try Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for the bull's personal quest. also copious abuse of qunlat because i now have just enough of it translated to be dangerous.

"I had some reports sent to me," The Iron Bull says, leaning forward, close to being in Shan's space. Shan keeps his back straight, doesn't flinch. The Bull is _ben-hassrath_ , he can see Shan's discomfort anyway, no matter how good he is at masking it. Hissrad was a legend, even when they were both teenagers. "Looked you up."

"Impressive that you figured out my name," Shan replies.

"Wasn't hard. Not so many saarebas found at sixteen years old. Even fewer coming from _tamassran_ and _ben-hassrath_ pedigrees. Only one who went _tal-vashoth_ since you were born, assuming you're not older than fifty years old." The Bull sits back and grins at Shan, who knows his jaw has clenched, who can feel every one of his own nervous tells, who's trying to figure out where this is going. "A lot of your reports said you had good potential, but that you weren't sure of your place, which held you back. They were considering re-education."

He flinches, then; he knows he would have come out of it intact - his doubts hadn't been that great, and he had assumed his place was among the _qunari_ \- but that doesn't change the thoughts of having his mind broken and reassembled by someone else, every doubt picked apart until he was a sobbing, contrite mess on the floor of a _viddathlok_ \- he's seen the re-educated before, it's not something he wants to be, not something he wants anyone else to see him as - it doesn't change the fact that he was terrified of it. That he's still terrified of it, thousands of miles and a decade away from that possibility.

"Were they?" he asks. They're both playing this game. He schools his features back into a mask of indifference, crosses his arms, leans back against the support beam in front of the Bull's chair.

"Yeah. They were gonna let you go for a few more months, then see what to do with you."

"Are you trying to scare me?' Shan asks. "Because it’s working. That was years ago. I didn't want to know this. I don't need to know this."

"They have a suspicion about who you are. Even without that, they know you're _tal-vashoth_ and that you're a mage. If a _karataam_ doesn't come for you after this whole mess, I'll be surprised."

"Thanks for that reassurance," Shan snaps.

+++

They’ve met up with the chargers and everyone looks happier for it. Shan is turning something over in his mind, hasn't spoken since he gave the Bull the command to call the Chargers back.

" _Tal-vashothalit-an_ ," he finally says, when they've made it back to an inquisition camp. The Bull snorts.

"Maybe you," he says. Shan scowls and waves his arm.

_"Katoh. Ara-an say bastaam. Katara nehraa kadantaam. Tal-vashothalit-an. Qun ebasit vashedan."_

Bull harrumphs, but he's smiling. Krem narrows his eyes at the two of them.

"You wanna translate, chief?" he asks.

"Reminded me that if it gets the Chargers killed, the qun isn't worth the crap you have to put up with."

Shan snorts, but he's smiling too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Katoh. Ara-an say bastaam. Katara nehraa kadantaam. Tal-vashothalit-an. Qun ebasit vashedan._ \- Stop. You respectfully exist with the non-qunari. You die for [the chargers]. [you are] a tal-vashoth worthy of respect. The qun is crap."


	53. Ataash, Blackwall, And Mabari Puppies (AKA: Final Week Was Awful And I Only Cried Twice)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> adaar/blackwall + mabari pup imprinting?? or tending the horses?? OR MAKING OUT IN HAY??

"One of the scouts brought her pregnant mabari along when she joined. Just had her puppies in the barn. She’s looking for people to take care of them once they’re weaned." Blackwall leans against the staircase in the tavern. Ataash is sitting at the table they hauled in for Wicked Grace night, heavy quilted coat wrapped over her shoulders. She’s dozy, a little wobbly, a little drunk, smiling droopily, her eyes half closed.

"Mabaris are the smart dogs, aren’t they? The smart dogs who are shaped like bears with very long legs and happy faces?"

Blackwall chuckles. Ataash tries to give him a stinkeye and fails.

"Those are the ones."

"They must have very large puppies." She’s smiling, wide, sleepy, interested.

"They’re newborn. Eyes aren’t even open yet. Probably smaller than your hand."

"Ohhhhhh they are tiny puppies." She grins and staggers to her feet. She’s a little unsteady - too tired after a long day, wobbly after uneven terrain and a lot of it, just drunk enough to lower inhibitions. Blackwall gets his arm around her back - there’s only one flight of stairs between the tavern and the barn, but she’s not exactly steady on her feet - and carefully guides her outside and to the stairs. She keeps her hand curled against his shoulder, and he leans into her a little, ostensibly to keep her upright for sure, but mostly to feel her, solid and warm and soft, against him.

The trip down to the barn is uneventful, though she seems much more awake after tripping over one of the bottom stairs and having Blackwall catch her before she topples and gets hurt.

The Mabari is in the loft, but Ataash demands they stop by the stables before they go up to look at the tiny puppies. Blackwall waits patiently while Ataash babytalks to the bog unicorn, rubbing its wrinkly bog-body skin and cooing at it in qunlat. It _whuffs_ at her, and she giggles - giggles! - and pats it on the nose again. Since it doesn’t eat, she runs her fingers through its mane, then goes down the line, emptying her pockets of various other treats for the other mounts - an apple for the Tirashan Swiftwind, a sugar cube pilfered from the kitchens for the Fereldan Forder. Blackwall sits back and watches her, smile playing on his lips.

When she’s gone all down the line, she returns, and plants a kiss first on his forehead, then on his cheek, then on the tip of his nose. She giggles again, grinning so wide her eyes squinch shut.

"There are puppies,” she stage-whispers conspiratorially.

"There are, my lady," Blackwall chuckles, and takes her by the hand to lead her up to the loft.

The scout is leaning against the bales of hay next to the new mother, who is stretched on her side, seven wriggling puppies pressed against here. She pants happily up at Blackwall and Ataash. The scout grins up at them, and Ataash drops to her knees and reaches out to pet the mabari. She whines happily, her tail thumping, as Ataash scratches behind her ears, grinning.

"If you want, ser," the scout says. "You can probably hold one of the puppies, so long as you’re careful."

"They are so tiny," Ataas whispered reverently, carefully worming her fingers under one of them and lifting it carefully from its fellows. She cradles it to her chest, hums as it squeaks and stretches stiffly, nubby legs and tiny ears twitching. It yawns, squeaks again, and her face lights up. "It is so tiny," she murmurs, eyes going wide. "How big will it be?"

"She’ll be about as big as her mum, maybe a little bigger if she takes after her sire," the scout says, grinning. Blackwall leans against one of the support beams and smiles, as Ataash picks up each of the puppies in turn, strokes their backs with callused, gentle fingers, lets them chew on her pinky while she laughs. "When they’re a little older, weaned manye, they should be about ready to imprint on people. You’re welcome to come back and play with them whenever you want though, ser. They need to get used to people touching them and playing with them."

"They are so tiny," she murmurs again, stroking the back of the puppy currently curled up in her palm. He just fills her hand, her fingertips uncovered but the rest of her hand covered in squirming newborn. "I would like to play with them when they are older," she agrees, smiling at the scout.

"If they’re anything like their mum, they’ll be some of the best mabari around. Heard she’s related to the mabari the hero of ferelden had with her through everything. Sired by the hero’s dog’s brother or something." The scout smiles and scratches the mabari behind the ears.

Ataash gently replaces the puppy among his siblings, tucks her knees up to her chest, and watches them snuggle back together and fall asleep, grinning to herself.


	54. Ataash And Shankatara Talk Pajamas (AKA 'The Sequel To Chapter 32')

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> writing prompt! do something about shan and pajamas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for blood near the end

Adaar offers him their cot until another one can be procured, shoves their brother’s shoulder and orders him to move over. The two of them make indistinct grumbly noises at each other, but they manage to both fit, somehow, onto the single cot that creaks protestingly under their combined weight - their brother is small for a qunari, but Adaar is comparatively huge, making fitting two people on a cot an exercise in ‘who gets cuddled more.’

"I don’t have anything to sleep in," Asaaranda murmurs, arms protectively across his chest as he huddles on the cot that smells like Adaars vitaar and sweat and the coarse soap everyone here uses too infrequently. His face stings under the bandages.

"I usually sleep naked unless I have to share with _Katasaara_ here,” Adaar offer, as if that is at all helpful advice.

"I’d rather not sleep naked," he points out. "That’s usually the point of wanting to wear something to sleep."

Adaar chuckles, then goes quiet for a moment.

"You should fit some of my shirts and pants, if you don’t want to sleep naked. I don’t mind." Adaar rolls over, and their brother grumbles again. They watch Asaaranda as he stands and carefully crosses to the chest of drawers in the corner. Adaar has exactly one drawer of their things; their brother has another; Asaaranda put all of his few things in a third. He pulls a shirt out of the bottom of Adaar’s drawer - if it’s at the bottom, it doesn’t get used, is his reasoning, and carefully pulls his shirt off, doing his best to avoid the bandages over his arms and face. Adaar harrumphs. "You’re too thin. You need to eat more. I’ll have Shokrakar get more potatoes next time we buy food. You need more meat on your bones. Fat on you, too. Else you’ll freeze. Gets cold down here."

"I’ll keep that in mind. Can you please stop staring at my ribs?"

"Sorry," Adaar laughs, and he hears them shift on the cot, assumes they’ve turned around. "Just don’t want you to freeze to death when winter comes."

"I won’t," Asaaranda snorts. "If I have to, I’ll sleep by the fire."

"Shokrakar will drag you back up here if you try it," Adaar laughs. "One person gets away with it, anyone can get away with it.

"I’m sorry I’m new here and don’t understand your weather." He rolls his eyes even though Adaar can’t see him, and tugs their shirt down. It’s good to be covered again. He goes digging through the drawer to look for the shabbiest pair of pants he can, the ones he hopes Adaar won’t miss. He finds them shoved way in the back, changes as quickly as he can, then turns around. Adaar started humming when they went quiet, low and soft and tuneless, and it’s oddly comforting. He thinks he almost recognizes a melody - something the tamassrans had sung to soothe the children with nightmares back to sleep - but it quickly fades. He returns to what he assumes is now his cot, settles on it with his hands folded between his knees. "All your clothes are too big," he murmurs.

"More comfortable for sleeping in. You’ll be uncomfortable enough during the day, you don’t need to be uncomfortable at night too." Adaar half sits up, raises their eyebrows, twitches their ears once like they’re batting off a fly. "Besides. Beggars can’t be choosers."

"They’re good clothes," Asaaranda amends, afraid he’s offended Adaar. It must show in his voice, because Adaar laughs.

"I am not hurt by your thoughts about what I wear, Asaaranda. I am glad you are comfortable. Do you need a blanket?"

"No, this is…this is alright." It’s not the first time he’s smiled today, but if he keeps up at this rate, it looks like smiles might be getting more common. It’s hard to smile when you’re starving and scared and no one understands you. It’s easier when someone has fed you and cleaned your wounds and told you to go the fuck to sleep.

Adaar huffs once, smiling, and rolls over, elbowing their brother again. He makes angry noises, but the two of them adjust until they’re relatively comfortable.

Asaaranda tentatively lays down on the cot, has to roll over so his back is to Adaar because he can already feel the blush creeping up his neck and Adaar has too good of night vision and will tease him about it tomorrow. He drifts off to sleep with that thought in his mind - it’s been a long day. 

+++

He wakes up with his face wet and in pain. He sits up, tries to figure out what’s happening, and realized there are bloodstains on the cot where his face was.

Adaar, sitting across the room, lets out a low whistle through their teeth.

"Bled through the bandages. Going to hurt like getting slashed up all over again to change them. You ready?"

"Yeah," he mutters, whole face hurting when he tries to speak. He tugs at his collar, feels the wetness there, and his fingers come away red. "I’m sorry, I ruined your shirt," he mumbles, tugging it away from his body to look at it. The collar is bloody, and theres a patch on his shoulder, but most of the shirt is still clean.

"I wasn’t planning on asking for it back," Adaar chuckles, setting aside the staffblade they’re polishing and reaching for the bandages and mashed elfroot in a jar. "You have, what? Two shirts? And the one you came here with is bloodier than that one. Might not be able to wash it out. Wellwater and soap should get that one." Adaar nods to his collar. "The other one has too much blood. You’ll have more clothes to sleep in this way. We can get you more clothes today, if you’d like. Don’t have to leave on a job for another week or so, should be enough time to get you settled in. Now, this is going to hurt. Brace yourself," Adaar instructs as square, callused fingers find the edges of the bandages. Asaaranda takes a deep breath and steels himself.


	55. Ataash Wanders Around The Winter Palace Some (God I Hated That Mission)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "what ataash does at the winter palace when she’s not too busy gathering intrigue and killing harlequins" for broscadash

She circuits the ballroom, watching, ears pricked. She’s worked this sort of room before, lurked by the doors, watching for suspicious people. Mostly they used her to sniff out mages, she had a sense for it no one else did.

There are no mages here, no one is stupid enough to try. There aren’t enough guards, though - something a few of the other ballgoers she has talked to have noted too.

She exchanges pleasantries with a few of the nobles - all of these masked humans look the same, she’s so fucking tired of The Game already, even if it’s not hard to play - and continues on her circuit, shoulder loose, smile plastered on, hands folded behind her back. She bows to a few people, smiles at a few more.

She catches herself slouching, considers what image she wants to give off, decides a slouch is a better idea in this huge room full of skittish humans. Anything to be smaller and less threatening. They already give her side eyes and subtly shift away when she comes close.

Out in the garden - after stopping to talk to Blackwall, who looks distinctly uncomfortable, which, in turn, puts her on edge - she wanders through the gathered guests, smiling and nodding and trying to kill her accent and awkward phrasing.

Everyone is busy watching the bard, and when she looks up at the balcony, she sees another one of those spirits-damned halla statues. She looks around for a discreet way up - like there's any sort of discreet way to scale a wall for a qunari - and thats when she sees the trellis.

It’ll be wobbly, for someone her weight and her size, but it should be manageable. The biggest question is whether anyone will notice - they are all pretty engrossed in the bard’s latest song about someone or other’s great exploits against dragons and blights and other unpleasant events.

She starts up the trellis.


	56. Ataash ANd Shankatara Are That One Couple You Hate Because They Are Too Cute Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its not super specific but i love shan and ataash and them being cute.. maybe post-celebration giddy kissin and cuddles and stuff??

The festivities in the courtyard and the hall have been happening for a week, and Josie had told them she expects another month of emissaries and pilgrims and interested parties. Ataash and Shan had groaned in unison, Shan flopping back in his chair and glaring at the ceiling, Ataash sprawling across the table. Josie had snorted at them and pushed a list of expected guests across her desk and told them to read it.

They’re laying on Ataash’s bed, shoulder to shoulder, feet hanging over the footboard because this bed was made for humans, not for qunari. Shan is reading the names and Josephine’s commentary on each while Ataash pillows her head on her arms, eyes closed and breathing just unevenly enough Shan knows she isn’t asleep. They know each others’ noises by now, after seven years of being together constantly.

Ataash hums when Shan finishes reading the latest Orlesian name.

"Do we need to do this?" she asks. "The names will still be there in the morning." Ataash rolls over and buries her nose in Shan’s bicep. He chuckles and tosses the parchments over onto the cupboard next to the bed.

"Fine, fine," he laughs, and rolls onto his back. Ataash snuggles against his chest, presses sloppy wet kisses against his neck until he shoves at her shoulder and wipes the spit off. He’s laughing, and so is she, and after he wipes his hand all over Ataash’s arm - eliciting the expected squawk and attempted wriggle away - the two of them settle back down, Shan curled under her arm, she with her whole body curled around his back. She presses the occasional - dry, chaste - kiss to the back of his neck, and he stretches and makes a mumbly noise at her.

"Isn’t this better than reading a list of names?" she asks. He can hear the self-righteous smile in her voice.

"If you didn’t drool all over me, yeah." Shan snorts and half-glares at Ataash, but he can’t keep the smile down.

"You can’t even say that with a straight face," she accuses, burying her nose behind his ear and headbutting the stump of one of his horns with the remains of hers. She’s grinning too, big and toothy and cheek-aching. She wraps her arms over his stomach and tugs him even closer. "You love my slobbery kisses. You do! You’re blushing! You’ve loved them for years and you just wouldn’t admit it!" Ataash is laughing, but she shrieks when Shan reaches back and grabs at her sides with his fingertips, tickling her and sending her squirming across the bed to get away. He follows. She plants the heels of her hands against his shoulders, and for the first time in a very long time, he’s too short to reach. He can’t tickle her anymore - because her arms are a good three or four inches longer than his. She grins up at him like she planned it that way.

"You’re a piece of shit," he mutters down at her, pulling a face somewhere between a snarl and a grimace. It has a hint of a smile to it too though, and she just smiles back. "I know I am," she replies sweetly, and removes her hands from his shoulders. "It’s why you fell madly in love with me, remember?"

"Oh, right. _That_ was why. Not anything else.” Shan rolls his eyes, but lays back down with his back to her. She wraps around him again, humming happily. “Not possibly.” "Just let me cuddle you, you unhappy fun-spoiling asshole."

Shan sighs and lets himself melt back into her.


	57. Ataash And Blackwall Discuss Some Things And I Really Honestly Don't Know What This Is Sorry

He's in the barn, working on the staff he's carving Ataash for her nameday. Really, it's the anniversary of when she woke up and gave Cassandra a name; she doesn't know her first nameday ("I was very small," she says, "There are too many bad memories. There is too much bad blood between then and now.") or her second ("They called me 'adaar,'" she laughs, "It was a title. It was not a name."), and she says the last one is the one that really matters anyway, since she chose it for herself. She comes and watches him sometimes, and he has her test the staff for balance and grip, watches her move through forms she taught herself, all stretching muscle and soft edges and just-aborted movements that lead to fireballs and walking corpses and instant freezes of anyone with the misfortune to be in the way. He gives her pointers, sometimes--not on her staff technique, but on carving animals, after she showed him her menagerie of harts and horses and bears and one qunari with a crooked nose and half-missing horns she insisted were intentional.

She's leaning in the doorway out into the courtyard, arms crossed over her chest and the almost-curled lip she has whenever she's thinking about something and trying to summon the right words.

" _Shanedan, kadan_ ," he says. The words are still strange on his tongue, but the smile she breaks into when she hears him greet her in her language is worth the effort.

" _Shanedan_ ," she replies, and unfolds. She saunters across the barn, kisses the side of his neck underneath his ear, wraps her arm around his back, rests her temple against his. "I have been thinking," she says, and hesitates.

He feels his heart drop, the fear clench around his throat and his stomach. Someone is going to walk out of this conversation with their heart broken. Ataash doesn't bring up old conversations unless new information has come to light--and he's reasonably sure nothing has come up with their unfinished conversations.

"What about?" he asks, unwilling to prolong the inevitable.

"The nightmares, mostly," she replies. "There are not so many about darkspawn and monsters that Corypheus controlled. They are mostly about the _saarebas_ and the chains now." She says it like those nightmares don't still make her wake up and claw her way out of sweaty, twisted sheets, like she doesn't sit on the floor, breathing hard and scratching at the stumps of her horns with blunt and ineffective fingernails, like she doesn't refuse his touch for an hour after she wake up, like she doesn't count on her fingers--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten; ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one--until the silent sobs and almost-squeaks stop wheezing out of her lungs.

"That's good," he tells her. Even if it's a small victory, it's still a victory.

"I am also thinking about the things I said when you came back from Val Royeaux." For all her terrible pronunciation of Orlesian, she seems to have a handle on "Val Royeaux," of all things. He had informed her of such one night while they had traded placenames and etiquette from their respective places of origin. She had thought it was funny. "About you going to the Grey Wardens when everything was done."

"Is it already time to go?" he asks, forcing a chuckle, pretending he doesn't feel nauseous, that he can breathe easily. He hopes she can't hear his voice almost break.

"Perhaps not yet," she says, and he feels the fist around his windpipe unclench, feels the air rush back into his lungs. Ataash hums from deep in her chest, presses her lips to his cheekbone. "But soon, it will be. I cannot delay you forever. You will do good to pay for your mistakes, like you swore you would. You do not get out of your promises because I like you naked and between my legs." She laughs, kisses his cheek again, squeezes him with the arm around his back. He has to laugh too, though he's not sure at what exactly. "Of course, my lady," he replies, turns his head and tilts his chin up to make his lips easier to kiss from her angle. She obliges. "Although there are few places I would rather be," he adds. She laughs and swats him on the shoulder, eyes half-closed and comfortable. 

He continues to sleep in her room, continues to function as her living space heater, wrapped in her arms and legs every night until she inevitably wakes from the night terrors, but he sees her change after that. He sees her speaking with Morrigan more, flipping through books with Morrigan and Warden Mahariel, who shows up for a few days at the end of the month on her way to somewhere else, but stops by to offer the inquisitor her congratulations. They exchange greetings in elven and qunlat, rapid-fire back and forth, and then disappear into the library and only emerge for quick meals and runs to the outhouse. When the Warden-Commander leaves a week later, Ataash is grinning and waving, a notebook with pages and sketches falling out of it clutched in her hand.

Two weeks later, she leans in the door of the barn, and he meets her eyes.

"It is time to leave," she tells him, and he nods.

When he's packed his few things and taken the horse she offered to him, he's surprised to see her astride her Tirashan Swiftwind, patting Ebost-Asaara's neck as she shies from the humans in the courtyard who are watching with interest.

"My lady," Blackwall says, not sure of what's happening but very, very concerned.

"I am escorting you there," she tells him, nodding to his horse. "We are riding to Weisshaupt. You have been conscripted by _Ariberes-taar_ Mahariel. You are supposed to gather darkspawn blood on the way to the fortress in the Anderfels. I have letters of passage. It is a very long travel, I do not want to leave later than we have to. Are you ready to leave?"

She looks regal atop her hart, tall and proud and huge, back straight, armor polished, eyebrows raised.

"Of course, my lady."

"Then let us leave." She canters her hart around, nods to Cullen and Leliana, smiles at Josephine. " _Panahedan_ ," she says, then nods to each of their companion in turn. When her eyes land on Cole, his eyes go wide, and he gasps. She hold her finger to her lips, and after a moment, he nods slowly, once, and she smiles at him.

Blackwall mounts his horse, settles his weight over her back, and follows Ataash out of the front gate.

They are three weeks out of Skyhold--at the Nevarran border near the Tirashan forest--when he finally asks.

"Why did you come with me?" he asks. "I could have gone alone. I would've gone alone. Could have sent some of the Wardens around the Hold with me, back to their fellows."

"I have some information for the Wardens at Weisshaupt. And there is something I need to do. There are some people I need to meet." She shrugs, pokes the fire with her stick, yawns once.

"Who are you meeting?" he asks.

"There are vashoth and tal-vashoth who are joining. I need to meet any that have survived the Joining. There is important information I need from them."

"You aren't--" Blackwall starts, then stops himself. He scowls. "Thedas needs the Inquisitor, not another Grey Warden."

"My time as Inquisitor is done," Ataaash replies with a shrug, fingers curlign tighter around her stick. "I have thought very hard about many things. This is where my life is worth the most now." She shrugs again, her lips pressed tight. He knows that expression--that's the I-am-not-going-to-argue-about-this-so-sit-down-and-shut-up face.

"And how did you decide this?" he demands. He knows the mortality rates for the Joining, knows about how long Wardens live, knows what Ataash faces either way. She will not make this decision easily, not if he has something to say about it.

"I owe my life to a spirit in the Tirashan. I paid my debt to it. I owe my life to a lot more spirits over the years, but that was the first." She sighs. "This is how I repay them. In blood and sweat and protecting people. I have to do this. I made a promise. Isn't that what the other Blackwall said? That a Warden is a promise to protect others at the cost of your own life? I will protect Thedas however I have to. If that is as a Grey Warden, then I will do it as a Grey Warden. Thedas does not need me as Inquisitor." She pauses for a long moment, then continues. "I do not want to be the Inquisitor anymore. I have done my work as Inquisitor. I am not that person. I cannot be that person. I cannot be the person in charge of so many. Too many have died and too many have been killed because of me." She sighs again. "I do not want that blood on my hands anymore. I want a new beginning."

"I...see," Blackwall murmurs.

They lay down to sleep a while later without another word, and wrap around each other until noses are pressed to chests and legs are twined together and fingers are wrapped through hair and Ataash is humming a lullaby Blackwall almost knows the words to.

He's almost asleep, wrapped in her arms and pressed against her, chest to chest, when she whispers something to him. 

"I love you," she says, and he breathes against her neck, tries to remember if she's ever said the words before.

He doesn't know.

"I love you too," he murmurs, and her fingers tighten in his hair. He feels a hitch in her humming, and soothes his hand down her back.

It is the first night he hears her wake screaming from the nightmares.


	58. Shankatara Breaks Because Ataash Is Dead In This Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for death and something that could be construed as self harm

Shan staggers out of the rift. His skin doesn't sit right, feels like it's crawling with bugs; he can still see the woman, whoever she was, whatever she was, reaching down to help him up the last few feet. He stays upright, but just barely, arms clutched across his stomach, trying to quell the impending dry heaves. Everything is too much; too bright, too textured, too unsteady and shifting and unreal. He's not sure what he's seeing at first, until a faint breeze makes the beartooth necklace clatter.

"No," he gasps, and staggers over, knees refusing to bend, ankles threatening to give underneath him. He collapses in front of the body, curled in on itself, clutching at its clothes, mouth open like it was screaming when it died. "No," he whispers, voice cracking. He touches the burned face, nearly unrecognizable. "No," he whimpers, his voice wobbling helplessly. he's not crying, this is too much, too soon. "No, you can't--you can't be dead, not you, not after all this. You can't be--"

The crunch of boots in the ash causes him to startle and turn around, hand on the corpse's shoulder. His fingers dig into crackling skin, and he jerks away. This is wrong. This is not Ataash, Ataash is dead and gone and somewhere in the Fade. He tries to laugh, tries to think of her haunting someone and pulling faces at them, but it hurts, his heart hurts, everything hurts and his hand his hand his hand is on fire it's burning it hurts so much the pain is running up his arm and he screams.

There are soldiers, three of them, he thinks, but they're wobbling in and out and sometimes there are more and sometimes there are less and everything hurts so much and this must be some sort of hell because nothing here is right. The soldiers walk toward him, lean down to haul him upright, and there are hands on his arms, hands lifting him, and this is too much too much too much, and he pulls away, but their hands are too strong and he's trapped, stuck, caged and he can't do this can't do--

He doesn't remember any of the trip back, and mostly he runs on adrenaline and panic and fear until they are standing in the atrium of the temple of sacred ashes, and he knows this place, recognizes it with the lurch in his gut, and he sees the body, curled in on itself and picked at by the ravens that are wheeling above them. Cassandra is urging him forward, talking about how little time they have, and Varric and Solas keep quiet as he takes a few careful steps forward and falls to his knees. He takes the necklace from around its--her--neck, and ties it around his own. the teeth form his necklace click against the teeth from hers, a soft noise he can barely hear over the roar of the Breach above them. He clutches them so tight he feels skin break, then drops them and shakes his hand out, letting the two drops of blood fall to the ground. He doesn't say another word, not until after the pride demon is dead and ash.

He wakes up three days later in an unfamiliar bed in a town he thinks is Haven. There's an elven serving girl--he thinks, he's really not sure what it is with humans and subjugating elves--in the room, but after she stammers out some words--Cassandra wants to see him, the people of Haven are grateful but not sure what to do, his clothes are on the table, ser, pardon her intrusion. He sits up, and she flees the room. He sees the necklaces on the table, and unstrings one tooth. He uses the leftover twine to tie his hair out of the way, and puts both teeth on the same string, so they click together when he moves. He dresses, checks the box the girl brought, and then carefully opens the door. All down the avenue, there are people gathered, and one by one, they lift their hands over their hearts, hands curled into fists. Some nod, some bow, some even take to knee as he passes. Cassandra greets him in the chantry, and he stands by as she declares the Inquisition reborn.

"The necklace," Solas asks him a few days later. "It belonged to someone you knew?" "Yeah," Shan agrees. "I knew her. More than knew her. She--she should be here instead of me. She's the sort of person who could run this shitshow. She was kind and good and--and she deserves to still be alive. Not a charred corpse in a ruin dedicated to a woman she didn't believe in." He reaches up to fiddle with the teeth. 

"What was her name?" Solas asks. 

Shan hesitates a moment before he answers.

"Adaar," Shan says, startled. "I took--well, I guess the humans call it a surname? I took it from her. It's--in memory. A memorial, that's the word. Something to keep her alive, even if just a little bit." Shan ducks his head and blushes. "I called her 'Ataash' too. 'Glory.'"

"A beautiful name," Solas nods. 

Shan snorts, but it's affectionate. 

"It was," he agrees. "And she should be here. Better someone whose name means glory than whose name is a statement of your impending death."

"I will speak to Cassandra about returning her body to you," Solas offers. 

"No," Shan says, and shakes his head. "Let her rest in peace. She told us to leave her a body when she died, even if we had to throw it overboard to keep her from coming back to bother us. Leave her where she is. She's--she's where she needs to be, I'm sure." His voice breaks, and he turns and walks away. He can't have this conversation now. He doesn't think he can have this conversation ever.

Letters of condolences roll in from Valo-kas weeks later. Everyone has written pages offering their love and support and their grief. He can't even look at them without feeling his throat close up and his gut roil. Cassandra offers to read the letters to him, as does Josie, but he refuses their help. This is too personal, too hard, too intimate to be shared with people he hasn't been seeing naked for six years. So he keeps them in the drawer by his bed in the one-room house he has in Haven.

When he goes out, though, he tucks them into a pouch he keeps under his armor, that hangs next to the bearteeth and the last shard of his control rod. It takes a trip t the storm coast to recruit the qunari until he can manage to sit down and read through all the letters, one after another, trading the pain into anger until his fingernails dig into his palm and he is feeling Too Much. The last letter he gets from Shokrakar is the one that hits the most. It's a map and a name and directions.

He asks Solas along, and Cassandra, but requests that everyone else remains in Haven. The trip out to the mountains is a long one, and he is still unsure about taking weeks to see where this place is and why Shokrakar sent him its location and name. They avoid the forest, skirt it to the south, because across the map is written a big red X and, in Ataash's rare, shaky handwriting, "NO." The mountains are steep and the road is long and often barely visible, but the village that appears at the end of it is familiar from the way Ataash described it--two huge oak trees forming an arch as you stepped into the village, a few buildings scattered out among the trees, the largest building approximately central. There is no cleared land, and the only water is a stream to the south. Thirty tal-vashoth step out of their houses, and watch the newcomers stop on the path.

"I knew someone who lived here," Shan says in slow, quiet qunlat. "We were lovers. She ran from here, years ago. She was a mage." 

"Oh, that one," a woman says. She's leaning against the doorframe of what appears to be a blacksmiths's shop. "I know the one. And if it ever came back, it had better be with the kid it left with." 

"She," Shan says, and straightens his spine. "She left because she was afraid. You didn't deserve her anyway, then." 

"Nobody deserves a saarebas," someone murmurs.

He turns and leaves, tries to not make it look like fleeing, before he can run his mouth. Cass and Solas follow, both silent, both walking with careful, quiet steps down the gravel path. "I didn't deserve her," Shan says, voice too quiet and too high, too close to breaking into sobs. "No one deserved her but a lot of people needed her, and now she's a FUCKING corpse." Cass rests one hand on his back, and they stop in the middle of the road. His shoulders slump, and he breaks.


	59. Ataash Makes A Deal With Barely-Described Things Older Than She Can Possibly Imagine (And It's Terribly Anticlimactic)

"This is what I have to give," she tells the it. The deer skull she assumes covers its face quirks to one side. "This is all I have to give.”

She cuts her palm open on a sharp rack, a clean cut, a single slash of red against a grimy palm. She rises from her knees and offers her hand.

A skeleton hand snakes out of its robe, until it’s palm-up beneath her hand. a single drop of blood falls onto the bleached bone, and She breathes once.

"That is your life," it says to her. She suspects it doesn’t even have a mouth, though, so—maybe it thinks to her instead.

Spirits are difficult.

Old spirits,the ones without names or classifications, just reasons for existing and bodies that are probably theirs but not necessarily, are even more difficult.

"Then for his, too," she says, and reaches for the rock again, slicing it across her other palm, and holding out her hand until another drop of blood falls onto it’s palm.

"For his life too," it agrees. "You shall walk free, but there is a debt. You will repay the debt, or the forest will find you."

"I understand," she says.

It nods, and in the blink of an eye, it’s not here anymore.

The altar remains, though, the withered skeletons of flowers draped over the stag statue. It’s horns are pointed in a threat display. It’s a very detailed statue, for a place this deep in the woods, without a single road or path leading to it.

There is a human skull on the altar, surrounded by branches of berries. She thinks it’s human, anyway—its too smooth to be qunari, and it seems too large to be elven.

She lets the skull sit, and goes to pick flowers to wreath it in respect.

Her brother will sleep for a few more hours yet.


	60. Ataash and Cassandra Have Some Conversations Because I Started Polyshipping Them And I'm In Too Deep (No Romance Here Though, Sorry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ataash and Cass have some conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter in this fic, cause its getting too long and its a pain in the ass to read, im sure. ill probably start another one soon tbh

“I am not _stupid_ ,” Ataash snarls. She’s big, and Cass’s first response to her _first_ -first response (cowering) is to straighten her back and tilt her chin up. Be as big as she can. “I am not as smart as a lot of people in this inquisition, but I am not a _child_ and I am not an _idiot_. These are not my words, and you should respect me for trying.” Ataash turns away and hunches her shoulders, paces three steps before she reaches up to rub at her forehead, and the only words Cass catches out of the string of (what she presumes are) invective are “ _vashedan_ ” and “ _imekari_.”

***

“Go away,” Ataash yowls without removing herself from the blanket cocoon. “I am in pain and today is not going to happen.”

“You are the inquisitor,” Cass states. She hopes Ataash will read more into it that she’s put there, because it’s just past dawn and even though she’s been up for a while, dealing wit ha recalcitrant qunari twice your size as your second personable interaction of the day is not high on her list of “fun things to do.”

“I am also in pain and bleeding,” Ataash counters. “It will not stop hurting for six days, and I intend to sleep. Go bother Shankatara if you want something.” The lump of blankets move, and Ataash’s voice gets more muffled.

“He was the one who sent me,” Cass replies, and leans her hip against the top post of the banister.

“Tell him to go fuck himself then.” SHh says it so matter-of-fact that Cass has to struggle to keep from laughing.

“I will pass the message along,” she agrees, and even she can hear the smile in her voice.

Ataash grunts.

***

Ataash settles next to her at the table. She’s playing with a small knife in one hand, a block of wood in the other. Cass glances up just long enough to identify, then returns to her book.

They sit in near-silence for a while, the only sound that of her turning pages, Ataash’s knife on the wood, and the clang and uproar of the forge and its occupants down below.

“The words,” Ataash finally rumbles. “You said it is hard for you to–to write the words. DO the words move when you try to look at them on a page?”

Her words are carefully chosen, and Cass unbends her spine–her posture is terrible when she reads, she knows–and looks up at her. Ataash does not remove her eyes from her carving–now ostensibly something with four legs, though what exactly it is remains unclear.

“Some days,” Cass replies.

Ataash grunts. “Then why do you read?”

“I enjoy the stories,” Cass tells her. “They are–a welcome distraction, oftentimes.”

Ataash grunts again, and asks no more questions. Cass hesitates for a minute before she returns to reading. They sit in silence for another hour–until the sundown bells are ringing supper–until Ataash speaks again.

“They tried to teach me, but the letters never stopped moving. No one knew how to stop them, and no one understood, so when they realized I could not read and could not learn anything unless someone told it to me and held my hand to do it, they stopped trying. That was a few summers before the magic happened and almost all of them stopped caring what happened to me as Ataash, instead of what happened to me as the first child of the village.” Ataash’s face is calm, her eyes half-lidded and still focused on her hands, but there’s something off in the way she holds her shoulders, or the tight muscle in her jaw, the careful neutrality of her otherwise expressive eyebrows.

“That was their mistake,” Cassandra says, and hopes Ataash takes the right meaning from it.

Ataash’s lip twitches upward, and she lifts her chin and sighs. She closes her eyes, places her knife on the table, and presses one hand–the unmarked one, on her right side, away from Cass–to the back of her neck, between the tops of her shoulderblades. She rolls hr neck and shoulders until they pop, and sighs again.

“It was their mistake,” she repeats, mostly to herself, as she resumes her carving.

Cass returns to her book for a moment, before she remembers the dinnerbell.


End file.
